Reshaping The Cookie Dough
by DavidB226Morris
Summary: The First is gone, Sunnydale Is a crater, and the power of the Slayer has been released. WIthout bursting into song where do we go from here?
1. Chapter 1: A Final Toast

RESHAPING THE COOKIE DOUGH A Buffy/ Angel story by David Morris  
  
Rating: Can't see it going higher than PG-13 Spoilers: For Buffy, everything through the series finale. For Angel up to the finale of season 4.  
  
Disclaimer: Here's a little known secret. All of the characters in Buffy and Angel are actually mine. Joss Whedon and the people at Mutant Enemy stole them from me when I wasn't looking. I now reclaim them in the name of writers everywhere! (Diabolical laughter; one eye twitches uncontrollably) All right, all right. I only wish that they were mine. And I don't have any source of income so suing me is not a viable option  
  
Summary: So the First Evil has been defeated, the Hellmouth has been sealed and the power of the Slayer has been released. Without breaking into song, Where do we go from here?  
  
Authors Note: The story takes place three hours after the series finale 'Chosen'. Also, I may be taking some liberties with the Harris and Rosenberg families but since we have heard very little from them I think I can be forgiven.  
  
Chapter One:A Final Toast  
It was pretty clear to everyone that Principal Wood was in no shape to drive. Xander hadn't been sure whether his depth perception made him suitable to drive Dawn out of town; much less drive a busload of Slayers. Buffy's mishaps behind the wheel of any vehicle were legendary, and while Willow certainly knew how to drive, Giles questioned the wisdom of letting someone who had just had the equivalent of Wiccan electroshock therapy be allowed behind the wheel of the last school bus to ever come out of Sunnydale.  
So for now, Rupert Giles the man who had served as a watcher over the Slayer who had lived longest in the history of the Council, who had personally survived nine (by his own count)Armageddons, a man who had spent years of his life learning about demon lore and black magic found himself in a position that troubled him more than nearly anything.  
Bus driver.  
Normally when placed in a situation which made him feel out of sort, he would have taken the opportunity to polish his glasses, a gesture which usually served to comfort him. There were only two small things that stopped him from doing so now: 1) To do so would involve taking his hands of the wheel and his eyes of the road, and 2) he wasn't wearing his glasses. SO he kept driving down the highway trying to understand why he had this feeling of dread at the pit of his stomach.  
There was, of course, the possibility that it had to do with the fact that Andrew had taken the opportunity to lead all of the Slayers in a round of campfire songs. Before today, Giles had been one of the fortunate few to have never heard the complete lyrics to 'The Wheels On The Bus' and it was an experience that he well could have gone to his grave without. However, he knew that the last few months had been incredibly stressful for everyone and if this helped the potentials (Slayers, he corrected himself in his mind) let off steam well by all means he could take their discordant voices.  
But he knew that his dismay was most likely do to the fact that he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. He knew that Buffy, Willow and Xander had thought that they with the closing of the Hellmouth they could put their days of fighting evil behind them forever. Giles only wished things were that simple.  
For one thing, since he had come back to Sunnydale, he had the feeling that the First could not be defeated. He had tried to stop Anya from constantly speaking so defeatedly, but in truth, he had believed that she was the only one thinking clearly about the whole thing. The First had managed to do something that had not been thought possible by anyone, destroy the Watcher's Council and eliminate most of the Slayer line. And he had held out little hope that even Buffy could stop so mighty a force.  
When Buffy had proposed her idea about using the power of the scythe in order to make every potential Slayer into a real Slayer, he had thought that it was a brilliant idea. He couldn't help but think that the late Quentin Travers and his fellow narrow minded Watchers would have paled at the mere suggestion of such an idea. Dealing with one independent minded Slayer would be difficult enough; dealing with two had been harder. But having all the potential Slayers in the world with the power in their hands would make a lesser man want to curl up and take a very long nap.  
Because he couldn't see any other way to defeat the First, he thought that it had to be done. What he didn't tell any of the others was that he believed that their would be consequences. As he had taught Willow, he believed that there was a balance to all things, particularly those that concerned good and evil. A disruption of that balance had occurred after Buffy's second death and more importantly, her second resurrection. That change had helped the First evil begin its manifestation that had nearly brought about the end-times. Who knew what kind of evil force would arise to match the ascension of dozens, if not hundreds of Slayers?  
For that matter, who knew if the First Evil had been vanquished? Buffy and Faith had both said that it was history, but they----like everyone else--- had not stayed around to see its death throes. The closing of the Hellmouth seemed to symbolize that it would never again emerge, but maybe all that it meant was that it could no longer use it as a resource. There were other hellmouths, other axis' of evil that it might be able to emerge from. For all they knew, all they had managed to do was piss it off royally.  
Giles old boy, you really need a vacation. Here it is , you have just witnessed an event that will change the battle of good and evil and all you can do is look on the dark side. You've been under a monumental strain for the last six months. For God's sake, you are entitled to take a break. Everybody is..  
It took the ex-watcher a full second to realize that the voice speaking in his head was his own. He had gotten so used to hearing the constant chatter of being around a group of teenagers, he had nearly forgotten what his own voice sounded like. And the advice was sensible. He had spent so long fighting the forces of darkness, he couldn't remember the last time that he had just rested.  
We all need to rest. But there something else that we all need to do first.  
He drove about half a mile before he could find the off ramp for the next town. He couldn't tell how big it was but he hoped that it was large enough to have a sizable motel.  
And a liquor store.  
  
Nelson, California  
After Giles had told Buffy his idea, she had thought that it was good but then reminded him that there were thirty people on the bus and since they were for now on a budget, maybe Dom Peringon was not the wisest idea. He shrugged in that British way that he sometimes did and said he figured that they could do it with something domestic. He then agreed to go into the store alone seeing as none of them had brought their proper idea with them and it would be easier to avoid discussion in a new place.  
So that left her at the front of the bus looking at the last survivors of the final battle of Sunnydale.  
First she looked at Xander, the boy whose naturally sarcastic attitude hid one of the purest hearts she had ever known. He had never complained to anyone about being the only one in the group without any real power. But she knew that he had a lot more than anyone--- perhaps even he --- suspected. She didn't think that she would ever forget that speech he had given before the ill-fated first attack against the vineyard--- it might have been the most beautiful thing anyone had said about her.  
Next to him was Dawn. Even now more than two years after she had learned what she really was, she could not stop thinking of her as her sister. A year ago, she had said that she was going to show her the world. She didn't know if she had completely lived up to her word but she had seen quite a lot, certainly more than she had seen at her age. She intended to fulfill the promise that she had made even if she was finished.  
Across from her was Willow, holding Kennedy's hand. Even after what she had nearly done a year before, she was still her best friend. She had come a long away from the shy, bookish nerd who had a fear of frogs and speaking in public. It wasn't just that her power had made it possible for her to win the final battle. Willow really had been growing and changing more than anyone else. Maybe Buffy hadn't fully become the person she would be when she grew up, but Willow by now had. And there was a strong fearless woman who didn't care what anybody thought about her.  
Behind her sat Faith, ministering to Principal Wood's injuries. (He may need to see a doctor, Buffy thought. Unlike the rest of us, he doesn't have any naturally restorative Slayer powers). It was a funny thing. For years, she had hated Faith. Because she had gone rogue, because she had been the final straw that had broken up her and Angel, but mostly because she had lost sight of the better parts of her nature. But over the past year, even before she had come back to Sunnydale, she had begun to think that the two of them weren't so different. There were times when a Slayer needed to be ruthless and cold. Faith had taken it to an extreme, of course, but she still thought that maybe you needed to make yourself an island in order to lead. And Faith really had changed. She wasn't the cocky Slayer she had met five years ago, or the cold-blooded killer she had been two years later. Maybe her time in jail really had changed for the better.  
And filling up the rest of the bus were the twenty or so girls who had come to Sunnydale as merely potentials and now were full-blooded, power filled Slayers. It was funny. In all the excitement and stress that had passed over the last few months, all the energy that she had spent on getting them ready, she didn't think that she knew the names of more then half of them. She wondered how she could hide her ignorance and subtly relearn everybody's name.  
Then she wondered whether or not she would need to.Now that the battle was over, now that she was no longer by default the leader of the forces of Good, not that she was no longer the one (or two if you wanted to get technical) born into every generation would they even listen to her? Did she even have the right to command their attention? And if the answer was yes, did she want to?  
It was funny. For the better part of seven years, if anyone had asked her if she wanted to give up the mantle of leadership that was forced upon her by being the Slayer, she would have almost definitely answered 'Yes'. Now the opportunity to set it down had been dropped in her lap, and she found that she was reluctant to give it up. It had cost her happiness, it had broken up at least one relationship, it had even gotten her killed--- twice. Yet it was so deep a part of who she was that she wasn't entirely sure what she would be without it.  
This probably would have bothered a lot more than it was if she wasn't so damn tired. The events of the last few months--- hell, of the last few years--- made her when was the last time she had gotten a good nights sleep. For a moment, her mind flashed back to three days ago when she had slept peacefully in the arms of Sp--- no, she wouldn't think of him yet. She would think of him--- that was the reason that Giles had left the bus in the first place--- but not yet.  
As if he had been drawn by some kind of psychic Slayer-Watcher connection, Giles took that moment to reappear. "Well I've got it. If everybody would care to come outside."  
Since Buffy was at the front of the bus, she was the first one off and saw what Giles had bought. It was a box with four bottles of champagne and a bag full of plastic cups. "Buffy, if you could give me a hand."  
"Giles, when opening a bottle of champagne it is traditional to use a corkscrew." The watcher fixed Buffy with one of those looks that only someone like Giles could give.  
"Of course. How foolish of me to assume that someone capable of removing a scythe from an anvil would be capable of removing cork from a bottleneck."  
Buffy took one of the bottles from Giles. "Wonderful. A new use for my talents. I can rent myself out as a Swiss Army Knife."  
Xander and Willow had come off the bus and heard some of the last part. "What's the matter, Giles? Did you forget the Corkscrew of Geldon?  
Giles gave off a sigh. "No, that was lost in The Great Fire of 1698."  
Xander took this in. "Hey, I was kidding."  
"So was I."  
"So I guess you are allowed to have a sense of humor in England." said Buffy.  
"Yes. ' sighed the watcher. 'It's just discouraged.'  
Buffy paused. "Didn't you use that line once before?"  
Giles thought it over for a moment. "I may have. I don't keep track."  
"Well maybe you can take the time between apocalypses to work on your banter."  
At this point Buffy managed to get the cork out. Giles got one of the cups out and managed to stop the bubbles from all flowing out. He gave the first glass to Willow and slowly began pouring into the others.  
By this time Dawn had come out of the bus. Giles hesitated only a moment before handing her a cup.  
"You sure that its OK for me to drink? This isn't corrupting a minor or something like that."  
"I think that the traditional rules can be suspended after the aversion of an apocalypse." said Willow.  
"Drink up, Dawnster. Tonight you become a teenager." said Xander.  
"As you'll recall that happened two years ago." Everyone looked at Dawn, who had an expression of placid innocence on her face.  
"Right, because two years ago you were fourteen. That's what you meant and not that you were created out of a ball of mystical energy and just became human and will somebody please shut me up before I put my foot any deeper in my mouth."  
Dawn playfully slapped Xander on the head. "It's really good when I get to mess with somebody's head without saying anything."  
"Yeah; I really got to work on that."  
Faith and Principal Wood came out of the bus. Already most of the other Slayers, Kennedy and Rona at the head were starting to push ahead.  
"Well, I hope that you broke out the good stuff, B. I feel that I could use something to get me going." That sounded enough like the old Faith for Buffy to look up somewhat alarmed.  
"Faith, you do realize that this a wake and not a celebration." said Giles.  
"Hey, I'm not feeling that zip-a-dee-doo-dah right now either. But the idea of a wake is more for those who are still living then those who are dead. The people who died did so to save the world and it's up to us to enjoy it."  
That sounded so deep and adult it stunned some of the others into silence.. Faith noticed the expressions and gave a small smile. "What can I say? You spend time in the big house, you learn a little philosophy."  
Buffy looked past her towards Wood. "You feeling well enough to do this,sir?" Wood gave a half smile that reminded Buffy how young he really was.  
"I think that it's just Robin now. My title disappeared along when my school did." Robin nodded back to where Sunnydale had been. "Besides, it'll probably help dull the pain."  
"Hey, you should consider yourself lucky. The last time the high school got trashed, the principal got eaten." said Xander.  
"Yeah, I'm feeling really lucky right now."  
Slowly the rest of the Slayers got off and Giles and Buffy did their best to make sure that they all got a glass of bubbly. Some of the younger girls were a little unsure if they could have a drink but the older ones were assured that it was a special occasion.  
Buffy had just about thought that they were finished when she noticed that someone was still on the bus. "What happened to Andrew?" she asked Molly the Slayer who had been sitting nearest to him.  
The tall and somewhat gawky girl shrugged. "I don't know. When you mentioned what we would be drinking for, he got kinda quiet."  
This was somewhat surprising. Over the last few months, Andrew had been almost irritating in his cheerful way of mattering on, even after every major attack by The First. He had seemed all right even after the final battle.  
"Maybe he's experiencing some kind of Post-Traumatic Stress." said Willow.  
"Or Survivor Guilt." said Xander. "I know that he definitely didn't think that he would be coming back from this battle."  
"What do you think that we should do with him?"Buffy didn't know either the long-term or short term answer to this problem. For six months, Andrew had filled the role of uninvited guest in the Summers house. He had run the gamut from sometimes being useful to being a damn nuisance. AT one time or another, everybody had wanted to throttle him--- not an idle threat since most of the people in the house had done it a couple of times.Buffy had never had any clear idea what she would do with him because she had not thought that he would survive and now that the battle was over, she had even less of an idea.  
At this point Andrew ended her musings by emerging from the back of the bus.  
"Sorry I took so long. It's just.... I didn't know if it was OK for me to celebrate with you guys. I mean, it's not like I'm a hero or anything." For a moment Buffy felt an emotion she had not associated with the nerdy would-be supervillain. Empathy.  
Xander moved to him. "Hey, you made it through the fight, too. You've earned your seat at the table."  
That was one of the few nice things that anyone had said to Andrew in a while. He acknowledged it with a half-smile and took a glass from him.  
"All right. So how do we do this?" said Willow. For a moment, there was a long pause and Buffy realized that although death had been her near constant companion for almost seven years, she had gone to few funeral and fewer wakes. The silence was about to become awkward when Giles cleared his throat.  
"We have just survived a great battle--- maybe not the biggest of all history, but certainly one of them." ("That's being modest," Faith whispered.") Um, rarely in the course of human history has so much been owed by so many to so few."  
"Ah Giles, you're verging on plagiarism there." said Xander.  
"Sorry I needed something. We are the fortunate ones, the survivors. It is up to us, the living, to keep in our hearts the memories of those who have fallen. Whether they were Slayers, potentials or other forces for good in their own way they were all heroes." Giles paused again. "Buffy? DO you have anything that you would like to add?"  
It was a strange thing. Buffy was good at motivational speeches and fighting off scary monsters but she could be very awkward when it came to public speaking. For a moment she froze. Then suddenly it what she needed to say came to her.  
"I think that it is very important that when we think of Sunnydale, we think not only of the vampires, demons and other monsters but also of the brave people who tried to stop them." What was coming next would make them uncomfortable but she knew it had to be said. "It's also important that we remember all those in Sunnydale who fell against the forces of darkness. The ones who died fighting and the ones who just didn't come back."  
She glanced at the faces of her friends. From their expression, Buffy thought that she could guess who they were thinking of. Xander was thinking of Anya, his ex-fiancee who had died in the fighting, as well as his other friends like Jesse who had died at the hands of vampires. Willow was thinking of Tara, the Wiccan who she had fallen in love with and whose death had driven her to madness. Giles was probably thinking of Jenny Calendar, the computer teacher with whom he had loved before her death at the hands of Angel.  
And Buffy was thinking of the others. The Slayers who had fallen in the battle with the First, whether at the hands of the Ubervamps or at Caleb's. Her old high school acquaintances like Larry and Jonathan and Harmony, all long dead now. Cassie, the shy freshman she had tried to save from the death that she had predicted for herself.  
And Spike. When she had first started sleeping with him, she had told herself that it was out of revulsion, out of some perverse self-loathing. But in the end, she had realized that there was something good in him. Something worth saving and caring for. Something that made her love seem pure. Whatever his faults--- and they were manifold---- he had died a champion.  
"To those who have fallen, we who live salute you." she said.  
"Amen" said Giles, and they all drank.  
The mood of silence and solemnity lasted forty-three seconds---pretty decent for people their age. It was Xander, perhaps inevitably, who broke it.  
"You know, this may be the weakest champagne that I have ever tasted."  
"And how much have you..." Giles didn't get a chance to finish the sentence.  
"It does taste a little... You know off." said Willow.  
"Is it supposed to taste this watery?" added Dawn.  
"Let me look at that" said Principal Wood taking one of the bottles. "Domestic. From Houston."  
"I didn't know that they bottled champagne there." said Buffy.  
"Yes, it's right up there with Paris and the Napa Valley for wine production." said Willow.  
"I thought people from England were supposed to know something about the quality of liquor." added Faith.  
"That generally has to do with the difference between single malt and double malt. " said Robin.  
"Everyone else doesn't have a problem" Giles countered, gesturing to the other Slayers who then proceeded to shuffle and looked at their feet uncomfortably.  
"I thought that the bubbly water was excellent." said Chao-Ann. However, since she was still speaking in Mandarin, nobody paid her any mind.  
"Fine, fine. Next hellmouth that we seal Buffy can buy the champagne." said Giles.  
The solemn mood, such as it was, broke up. But Buffy knew that, at least for a moment, those who had fallen in Sunnydale had been and would be remembered. 


	2. Chapter 2: Late Night Conversations

Chapter 2: Late Night Conversations  
The problem with being in a place with a large group of people is that you tend to forget the limitations of your size. The house at Rovello Drive in Sunnydale had been ill-equipped to handle Buffy, Xander, Willow, Giles, Anya, Spike, Dawn, Andrew and about twenty five potential slayers. Nevertheless, for nearly four months that is what it had done. And while it had never been comfortable for everybody they had at least gotten used to it.  
But now that the house (along with the rest of Sunnydale) was gone, the weary travelers were beginning to realize just how difficult it was going to be to find any place that could hold all of them. It was difficult enough finding a place that could hold them for one night. There were only six motels in the town of Nelson, none of which were equipped to hold thirty people. It did not help matters that they were mostly all teenagers and that both of the adults looked like they had gone the distance against Triple H. When Giles had tried to use the excuse that they were on a school trip, several of the motel owners reasonably asked why they hadn't made arrangements at some place to stay and the ex-Watcher fumbling attempts to come up with a reasonable explanation did not help matters.  
Perhaps because they were all so worn out from the long ordeal of the past few months, it took Willow forty-five minutes and four motels later to realize the obvious: that since there was no longer a tremendous evil chasing them and (even if there were) all of the girls were now more then capable of fending for themselves that they all didn't NEED to stay at the same place. The group could split into smaller sections and each stay at a different place. When Giles questioned that since the motels were a couple of miles apart, Willow said that she had finally recovered enough from her magical overload to drive and Wood had said he could handle taking them the few miles.  
So that was what they had done. Buffy, Dawn and Giles went with about six other slayers to one motel; Faith, Principal Wood and Andrew went with seven other slayers to another and Willow and Xander went with the rest of them (including Kennedy) to the last. They agreed that they would meet the next morning at the biggest restaurant in town the next morning after which they would decide what they would do now.  
So that's where they were now. Xander had his own room for the first time in months, though he had offered to share quarters with any of the Slayers. All had refused rather than share with him. Of course Willow and Kennedy were together. She could have offered to share her room with Xander because she only planned on using one bed but it has seemed a little too porno for her to be comfortable with. Both the Witch and the Slayer had been very tired, but not too exhausted too have celebretory sex (or thank God we're alive sex; Willow was unsure of definitions of lovemaking other than make-up sex). Afterwards Kennedy had fallen asleep.  
Willow however was still up an hour later. Maybe it was the magical energy that was still flickering inside her or maybe it was because the fight was over but she was having trouble falling asleep.  
All of a sudden she heard a voice in her head: Will, you still up?  
It was Xander. Over the last two years Willow had mastered magic to the point that she could think something and have it heard. She had taught Xander and Buffy how to do it, but they had rarely used it; partly because they were uncomfortable using magic around her, but mostly because it just weirded them out.  
Nevertheless, here Xander was.  
I'm awake. She thought. Pause.  
Want to take a walk?  
She hesitated for a moment, then thought Meet you outside.  
It only took a second for her to put her clothes back on (We left Sunnydale with only the clothes on our backs, she thought We're going to need to buy some more) and then she was outside.  
And there was Xander. Despite all the things that had happened over the past seven years, he was still her best friend. He never complained about being the only one without any real power or having to hang around a bunch of girls who, for the most part, would never give him a second thought. Willow had been in love with him for a long time, and even now, she still cared for him more than anyone else.Of all the people that she had been prepared to lose, she didn't know how she could have dealt with losing him.  
Willow had a pretty good idea what was bothering Xander but she knew enough psychology to ask about it directly.  
"You know, you think after a big battle like this something special would happen. " Xander said.  
"I kinda think destroying Sunnydale qualifies as 'special'."  
"You know what I mean. I keep expecting some announcer to come down and say "Buffy Summers, you've just defeated the greatest evil that the world will ever know. What are you going to do next?'"  
"I don't think that Buffy has ever been to Disney World."  
"It can't be that much better than Disneyland." Xander said coolly.  
"Maybe they've improved things since we were nine."  
"I find that difficult to believe."  
"Hopefully the patriarchal system which makes Minnie and Daisy subservient to Mickey and Donald is no longer effective. "Both Willow and Xander smiled, but there was a certain amount of pain about it.The two of them had been friends for the better part of seventeen years yet even now there were certain subjects that the two of them had to tiptoe around. In all the years that Willow had known the Harrises, they had never seemed especially proud or very happy that they had a child. It didn't help matters that Xander had been one of those kids who had been struggling in school since first grade and had always had a reputation as a class clown. During the years that they had hung out together, Xander had tried to spend as much time as possible avoiding them. He had also avoided a lot of family gatherings such as Christmas and Thanksgiving.  
Willow didn't know the details but she thought that Sam Harris had a drinking problem. She knew from what she had learned about his family that at least two uncles were heavy drinkers and she believed it carried over in families. She also knew from repeated visits to the Harris home that Sam had a very bad temper. There had been frequent arguments between the Harrises and it had an effect on Xander's mother and caused her to be somewhat overindulgent on her only child.  
Sometimes Willow had tried to talk to Xander about his problems with his parents because she could sympathize to a certain extent. Both of her parents had been academics and Willow had the feeling more than once as a project rather than a daughter. Sheila and Isaac Rosenberg had left Willow alone so often that it bordered on neglect. Family dinners were something of a joke because her parents always seemed to have their noses buried in academic journals. It was in part because of this that she had become so fluent on computers and the Internet long before most kids usually did. When she was fifteen, her father had accepted a position of a sociology professor at Stanford. Rather than move them there, he had rented an apartment on campus and commuted there three or four days a week. Willow had expected her mother to raise some kind of fuss, but she never even got mad. She wondered if her mother even had emotions or if they had been removed after years of academia.  
When she had gone to college, things had not changed much. Her selective amnesia whenever she practiced anything Wicca related continued. And while she had been going through the agonizing decision about her sexuality, she had never turned to her parents. Finally, after her freshman year of college ended, she had gathered the courage to tell her parents. After a lot of hemming and hawing, she finally put the words together:  
"Mom... Dad.... I'm gay." There was a very long silence after this. Willow wondered whether her parents were shocked into silence or whether they were just pondering this.  
Her mother spoke first. "But I thought you were dating that rock musician."  
"I was but...we broke up... And now I'm seeing this girl from college."  
Another pause.  
"You're gay." Her father spoke. It wasn't a question.  
Willow nodded.  
"Oh. Well." said Sheila  
"Oh.Well." said Isaac.  
Willow wasn't entirely sure what to make of this. It wasn't the reaction she had expected.  
"Is there anything else that we need to know?" said her mother.  
"You're... OK with this?"  
"Dear you're over 18. You really don't need to bring things about your life for our approval." Her mother then returned to the issue of Sociology Today that she had been reading.  
And that was it.Willow wanted to think that her parents didn't have a problem with her coming out but at times she thought that they didn't really have an opinion about her one way or the other. It wasn't that her parents didn't love her; it was just that they had no way of showing emotions other than indifference.  
Before Joyce Summers had died, Isaac had asked Sheila if she would like to move out to Stanford where she might be able to get some kind of teaching job. She had agreed and, almost as an afterthought, had asked her if she would like to finish out her college at Stanford. Willow had not taken long to think about it. Tara and her friends were here and she knew that Buffy needed her. If her parents had been disappointed they did not give any sign of it or of caring one way or the other.  
From then on, Willow had been on her own. Her parents had called sporadically every couple of weeks with no more interest in what had happened at school or with her friends. She had not told them that she had been living at Buffy's house since Buffy's latest 'death' or that she had been descending into a fog of magic using and certainly not that she had nearly destroyed the world in a fury after Tara' death. Maybe if they had been around, they might have been able to provide enough support to see her through but it was more likely that she would have attacked them in her fury.  
Xander's family had been even less helpful. Over the last three years he had been growing steadily more independent--- finding a steady job in construction, moving out of the basement of his parents house, settling down with Anya--- but it never seemed good enough. Maybe they were disappointed that he hadn't even tried to go to college, maybe it was because he had struggled for a year before finding his job--- but they didn't seem to approve of anything he did. Willow had never been able to get a clear answer from either Xander or Anya why he had called of his engagement on the day of the wedding. However she expected it had something to do with the general hostility between the Harrises and the demons who were Anya's friends, coupled with the fact that Sam Harris kept drinking and being abusive to his wife.  
Several months earlier, when it was becoming clear what a dangerous place Sunnydale was becoming, Xander had begged his parents to get out of town. Perhaps it was because of the aura that the Hellmouth was creating but they had listened and had gone to live with Uncle Fred in San Francisco for a while.  
"You want to know what scared me the most?" Xander said interrupting her reverie.  
Willow desperately wanted to say something sarcastic but she thought that Xander needed to get through this on his own."What?"  
"Two months ago when Mom and Dad left, my Dad took me aside.He looks me in the face and said: 'Alex'---- I usually minded when he called me that but not this time--- 'I know that I haven't been the best father to you and I haven't always been supportive of your choices. But what you have been doing with that Summers girl and her friends---- I'm proud of you.'"  
"He really said that?" Willow was floored. She had not thought that Sam Harris was capable of being emotional or that he had any idea what was going on in SUnnydale.  
"The second I heard that I thought I was going to die. It was every film cliche I'd ever heard."  
"Doesn't that usually mean that the person who says it is going to die?"  
Xander pondered this. "Guess he got out just in time." He paused. "I guess I should call them."  
"Yeah, I should probably call my parents too." said Willow.  
"It's just, how do you start that conversation. Mom, Dad, I'm OK but the town was destroyed along with our house and all our stuff. Your job is gone and our life savings have been wiped out."  
"Oh their money is safe." Xander looked at Willow and she found herself blushing. "About a week ago, when everybody started leaving the town Anya got this bee in her bonnet about making sure that all of her money was safe."  
"Well, good that she has her priorities straight." Xander said without real malice.  
"Well I kind of thought that it made sense. I mean if everybody was leaving Sunnydale they might take all of their money with them. Anya could stomach the end of the world but she couldn't handle the idea of being in one destitute. So she asked me to transfer all the money in her account to an off-shore trust. And while I was doing that, I took all the money in my families account and yours and Buffy's and put it in there. So their money is safe."  
"That's my girl. Always worried about stupid things." Xander paused again. "You know, I've been trying to figure out which would have been worse. Getting married to her, being happy for a little while and then losing her with her hating me or not marrying her and feeling like we still cared for each other."  
"That's a tough one." Willow had more than an accurate idea of some of what her friend was feeling. "And I'm not the best person to deal with how to deal with the loss of a loved one."  
"I never stopped loving her." Her normally sarcastic friend sounded like he was having one of those really sober moments. "It didn't hit me until just a little while ago. And now I keep regretting that I never told her how proud I was of her."  
"Yes, because she was such a source of positive energy."  
"Watch it Will, you're starting to sound like me." They both smiled. "But whenever an apocalypse came around she usually ran away. And here we were facing the greatest evil that the world has ever known and she had all those opportunities to get the hell out of Dodge and she stayed. What do you think it was that kept her here? Courage, love, or just stupidity?"  
"I don't know. Probably some combination of all three."Willow paused, then added: "I know that combo was what kept me here."  
"Same." Another pause. "Maybe its everything we went through, but it just doesn't seem to hurt that much. I mean,I'm sad, but I don't feel a lot of pain."  
"I guess that's OK."  
"You know what I feel? Upset. Not that she's dead, but that no one will ever know what she died for. No one is going to grieve for her except us. She died a hero and no ones going to know it."  
"Well, no ones going to know what any of us did." said Willow.  
"I know and that bugs me too. I don't care about credit for myself, but someone should know how valiant she was."  
"Yeah, and probably all those friends that she had in the world of demons will think that she died a traitor. Where's the fairness in that?"  
"I guess that we will have to tell the tale now." said Xander. "I mean what else are we going to do?"  
"I guess you're right."  
"No seriously Will, what are we going to do? Sunnydale wasn't fun city but I had built up a job there, you were going to college. Everything we built up there is gone."  
Willow thought about this for a moment. "Well, we're alive. We're still young. And we have our friends. That should be enough. We've had to deal with far less under far more strenuous circumstances. We can get back to normal somewhere."  
Xander pondered this for a moment. "Do all people who go to college sound like that because I feel very stupid at the moment."  
Willow gently punched his arm. "Come on. I'm gonna call my parents and tell them that we're OK. And after that were going to do the same thing with your parents.Then we're going to sleep and tomorrow, we'll figure out what's next."  
Xander sighed. "Well that's a plan." As they started towards their rooms, he spoke up. "You're sure that there isn't an extra evil we could fight before we call my parents?"  
"Xander."  
"How about letting me sleep in your room?"  
"Watch it."  
"Hey, we just beat the First Evil. Can't I just see you kiss Kennedy once?"  
"You know you have a dirty mind."  
"Hey I'm surrounded by scores of beautiful woman. Am I never to take any advantage of it?"  
"Why don't you try another love spell? Cause that worked so well the last time."  
The two of them bickered friendally as they walked back to their rooms.  
  
When she had first met Buffy five years and another lifetime ago, Faith had made the rather brash comment that slaying made her horny. It had not dawned on her until several years later (in prison you get a lot of time to reflect upon the error of your ways) that might have been one of her bigger problems; that penting up sexual energy in connection with fighting evil could lead to trouble down the line.Perhaps it was the combination of sex and frenzy that had led her to slowly but surely fall under the lure of darkness.  
In any case, she had somehow managed to get past it. Three years of having to be on a constant state of alarm in order to avoid being shanked will diminish anyone's sexual desires. And now that she had been out of jail for nearly a month (and basically in a constant state of ready for action) she could now say that she didn't get aroused by fighting. True, she had been biblical with Robin before the failed attack on the Bringers, but that had been different. There had been a kind of shared pain and understanding that she had not known from anybody in a long time combined with the fact that they, along with everybody else, been on the brink of death.  
Now she had helped fight and beat (if you believed the press clipping) the greatest evil that the world had ever known. And now she was feeling something that she hadn't felt in a very long time.  
Unsure of what to do next.  
For most of her life, Faith had been driven by her impulses; something that will get you into trouble even if you aren't the one chosen in every generation.While this had caused her problems in the long term, it had at least provided her with a clear plan as to what to do next. First it had been fighting evil. Then it had been surviving prison and working towards redemption. Then when Wesley had come for her a month ago, it had been to stop Angelus and The Beast. Then back to good old Sunnydale to save the world, both goals which had helped her dodge the fact that she was a fugitive from justice. The question that now arose was: what's next? The police had not been on her trail since she had left L.A. with Willow but she had to assume that they would be.  
Option one: she could go back to L.A. and finish serving out her sentence. Try and find redemption that way. Of course, the guards and warden would probably not be very happy that she had left and they might tack on another ten years to her sentence. And it wasn't like the last few years had exactly flown by.  
Option two: make a run for the border and hope for freedom. The old Faith would have done that in a heartbeat. But the new one realized the problems. She'd be running for basically the rest of her life. More than that she thought that she would be letting down some of the few people who had any confidence in her. Plus, she didn't want to leave Robin who had been one of the first men in a long time who seemed to want to work past all the emotional and psychical baggage that she had. She thought that she owed him, even if she didn't owe everybody else she had fought with.  
Option three: stay where she was and wait until Buffy and the rest of the Slayers planned to do next.This seemed to be the safest option especially since it seemed that the others finally had worked past all the bad feelings that they had towards her. Problem was what if they all decided to go back to living normal lives (something she certainly wouldn't blame them for wanting). Where would that leave her? Back with option one and option two.  
With these thoughts in mind, she had been a little preoccupied the last couple of hours. She had taken a room with Robin, had helped him get undressed, examined how badly that he had been hurt (a lot of bruises and small wounds but he would be all right in a few days) then gotten him into bed. She had considered having sex with him, but could tell from his state that he wasn't in the best condition to handle Faith full on, so she had just held him until he fell asleep. Unfortunately sleep did not come very easily for her. Perhaps it was because the bed was so big and soft, something that had been missing from the bunks in the joint or those in Buffy's house. Or maybe it was because she felt unsettled that the battle was over and that she had all these choices left to make. Whatever it was, rest did not come for her.  
After an hour or restlessness, she got up and decided to take a walk. However, she told herself that she would return to the motel and she meant it.  
As she walked around the motel, she thought how long it had been since she had been able to walk around anywhere and not feel afraid or in danger. It was a strange thing for someone with her power to be feeling but she had been afraid for most of her life. Perhaps it was because she had sensed the darkness in herself and realized how close she was to it. Maybe it was because she had this great source of strength in her and she had no idea how to properly use it. But she had been afraid a lot.  
On the long drive back to Sunnydale with Willow, she had expected the girl who had hated her for so long to launch into some kind of degradation of what a failure she was. To her immense shock, Willow told her that she had forgiven her. She then got a condensed version of what the witch had been going through the last three years topped off by the chain of events that started with Tara's death and had nearly ended with the destruction of the world.  
"I finally understood what it was like to be evil and I finally got the reason it is so attractive for so many people." said Willow. "It has to do with power, but more than that it has to do with control. When I tried to kill... everyone, I realized that without someone to help control you to balance whatever power that you have you can hold peoples lives in your hands.It's frightening but there is a great rush. And that can be overpowering. On a smaller scale that is what happened to you. And I understand. I don't forgive you--- that's not my job--- but I do realize what you were going through."  
Hearing this made her feel like she had gone through some kind of release. She had finally learned to control some of her power. The question was what did she do with it?  
Caught in her thoughts, she didn't realize that someone else was behind her.Out of habit she whirled around ready to fight.  
"Whoa. Sorry. I should have known what a bad idea it is to scare a Slayer." It was Andrew, the last person she had expected to see. During the past couple of weeks, she had taken the attitude that the nerdy hostage was only one step removed from being some kind of flake. She didn't know the whole story as to why Buffy and the Scooby gang were holding this geek prisoner, but she figured that he even more than her had reason to want to run away.  
Faith relaxed. "All your time in Sunnydale, I figured you should have learned better then to sneak up on a Slayer."  
"As the people at Buffy's house know, I kind of overlook certain things." He gave her a thin smile. It appeared that the nerdy kid had something on his mind; he did not seem to be his usual scatterbrained,pop culture quoting self.  
"You couldn't sleep either?"  
"I know, you'd think that since all the excitement is over and the battle is finished,nothing else to worry about, we'd all be exhausted."  
"So why are you up?"  
Andrew gave another thin smile. "I have something to worry about. That's kinda the reason I followed you. I am facing a major crisis and you may be the only person in this group who can really give me advice."  
Faith was simultaneously moved and uncomfortable. She couldn't remember the last time anyone had asked her for advice about anything not relating to fighting. Yet she really wasn't sure if she was qualified to help Andrew out with any problem. Nevertheless, she decided to see if she could help him. "OK. What do you need to know?"  
Andrew paused as if he was trying to figure out exactly what he wanted to say. "You were in prison for three years." It wasn't a question.  
"Yeah." she ventured cautiously.  
"How bad would you say it was for someone who wasn't a Slayer?"  
To be honest, Faith had been wondering how long it would take for anyone to ask her what her time had been like. She had honestly not expected that this kid (not kid, he's my age, she thought) would ask her.  
"Well, the food really sucks." she started. "The guards are told that we'd probably hurt them at a moments notice, so they're quick to beat some sense into us whenever we try something--- and sometimes when we don't . They tell us when to eat, when to sleep , when to exercise and they make sure that we don't do much else. This shortens the fuses of basically everyone who's doing time and they can use whatever opportunity the beat the living shit out of you. SO basically, you find yourself doing whatever it takes to survive. And if you're someone like me,someone who genuinely wants to change, your options become smaller and smaller. So what it comes down to is this, unless you really think that you have done something truly wrong, I would do anything in your power to try an avoid going there."  
There was a long pause as Andrew basically took all this in. "That's what I thought. Thank you." He seemed like he was about to turn away when Faith knew that there was a lot more to this.  
"Wait,wait. You don't just ask a question like that and then walk away giving nothing back. What did you do that makes you think you should go to the joint?"  
"You mean no one's told you what a bad-ass I used to be?" There was some pride in his voice but mostly Faith sensed shame.  
"Well, Willow told me that you and two other kids made yourselves out to be a bunch of supervillains."  
"Yeah supervillains. " There was definitely pain in his voice. "We were just three nerds who had been sitting around in our basements watching reruns of Hackers and reading Harry Potter and figured that because we'd manage to pull off one big magic spell or taken metal shop that we could rule Sunnydale." He laughed bitterly. "We should have just stuck to comparing Star Wars to Lord of the Rings."  
""So what did you do that was so terrible?'  
"Robbed a museum. Stole a couple of jewels. Tried to rob a fair." Pause. "Killed a girl."  
"Tara." Faith nodded.  
"No. " He took a deep breath. "We invented this mind control device to work our wills on women. We tried it, it didn't work properly, so Warren killed the girl we tried it on." He swallowed. "AT that point Jonathan wanted out, but we convinced him to stay with us. Good for us."  
"So Buffy caught you and Jonathan" ---Faith had a vague memory of that kid from Sunnydale High-- "but Warren got away." Andrew nodded. "Then he killed Tara and tried to kill Buffy. Which caused Willow to go mad and kill Warren."  
"She broke us out of jail because she wanted to kill us herself. " He sighed. "We had another out then. Jonathan said that after the craziness ended we should go back to prison and do our time. I convinced him to run away with me to Mexico."  
Faith nodded. She had gotten part of the story from Willow and knew what was coming next. But she knew enough about redemption to know that he had to tell her. "So in Mexico, the First came to you and told you and Jonathan to return to Sunnydale."  
"All the way back, he kept talking about how he was going to help save all the people in Sunnydale that he knew, even the ones who hated him. I was so sure that Warren was really there that I barely listened to a word he said." There was a very long pause again. "SO we went to the basement, to the seal, and I...I ... Killed him."  
Faith didn't know if she had ever seen a boy cry in her life, but Andrew looked like he was about to. She was feeling kind of awkward but she walked towards him and put an arm around him.He took a few very deep breaths and then seemed to get a hold of himself.  
In an attempt to ease the tension, Faith spoke up: "I guess we have something in common."  
"You know I always wanted to have something that I could share with a girl." Andrew sighed. "I just never thought that it would be premeditated murder."  
"I guess that isn't the kind of thing that you tell your parents about." She gave him a small smile.  
"You want to know what the Twilight Zone part is?"  
"Well, I'm a little weak on that particular term but go ahead."  
"I never expected that I would ever have to pay for my crime. Even after Buffy and her friends sort of took me hostage, I figured that they would use me as some force of good and that would redeem me."  
That sounded a little weak to her considering what she knew about Buffy and her friends, but Faith decided to let this pass.  
"And then after... the last couple of weeks, I sort of figured that I would be dead. That this would be my punishment for what I had done." Andrew laughed without much humor. "When they told me I was going to fight that last battle, I was positive that this was how I would meet my end. I figured that Anya was going to make it, not me. Never in a million years did I think that she would be dead and I... wouldn't be. And it just seems wrong. "  
Faith remembered what Xander had said about survivor's guilt and it looked like he had a major case of it. "Hey, Anya had a good run. I don't think that you should feel that bad."  
"But people miss her. She was loved or at least cared about. If I had been the one to die, who would have mourned for me?"  
Faith was beginning to feel uncomfortable but she could also relate. When she had come out of her coma three years ago, she had wondered if any of the Scoobies or anyone else had cared if she was still alive. It was part of the reason she had been so bitter and angry against Buffy.  
"I'm sure that your parents would have cared." she said weakly.  
"My parents didn't even notice when I crossed to the Dark Side." he said bitterly. "Tucker was always the apple of their eye anyway. Even after he released the hellhounds at the Prom, they still thought that he was perfect."  
"He what?" Faith had been near Sunnydale High back then but she had never heard of this little stunt.  
"Oh he was pissed that no girl would go out with him. Hell, I saw that one coming. Tucker compared women in Star Trek categories, for Gods sake." There was a wistful look on Andrew's face. "Oh, Seven of Nine..."  
"Excuse me."  
"Sorry. Doesn't matter. Anyway my point is maybe he would have given a damn about what happened to me. But he's been at USC for the past three years. He doesn't even know that Sunnydale has been destroyed. He wouldn't care what had happened to me. He's got new friends. He's got something to hang on to." Another long pause. "I... killed... the one person who gave a damn about me." He sighed. "Maybe I should go to jail. AT least then I'd have something to hang on to."  
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." This was a subject that Faith could talk about with some experience. "Look, I'll admit. You have done something horrible.Maybe for that you should go to jail. But if you have to go with the hope of being redeemed. If you go in with an attitude that you have nothing to look forward to outside, that is a sure way to guarantee that you will end up dead. And I don't think you want that."  
"How do you know?"  
"I know." Faith gave a sigh. "When I woke up from my coma, at first all I wanted was revenge. But... Then I realized that I was a monster. And I couldn't take that. When I went to L.A., I thought I was going to get revenge. But he knew what I really wanted."  
Andrew breathed. "You wanted him to kill you." Faith nodded.  
"After everything that I had done to him, he still believed that there was something in me worth saving. That beneath the layer of bad that I'd had built, there was something fundamentally good still in me. That there was some hope of redemption."  
"And do you think I have that something?" Faith knew how important the answer to this question was.  
"I don't know for sure. But you fought against the First and survived. That has to count for something."  
Andrew took all this in. "Faith, when the police came to take you in, you fought them off." She looked at him in surprise. 'Amanda told me about what happened when we left. Anyway, did you fight them off because you knew you were needed here or because you had no intention of going back to jail?"  
"You're more perceptive then they give you credit for." Faith said. She sighed. "I don't know. If... what happened in L.A. Hadn't happened, I'd still be serving my sentence. But now that I've been out... I don't know. In fact, I was still trying to figure that part out when you came up."  
"You were thinking of running.' Again the nerd had surprised her."Hey, it doesn't take a supergenius to figure out what you'd be thinking. "  
"And you were thinking the same thing."  
"Yeah, but there still is one difference between us. Actually two. The first is if I decided to run, you could stop me."  
"And you couldn't stop me." said Faith. He gave a small smile.  
"You could probably knock me cold with one of your eyebrows." The smile faded. "And you still have a reason to stay. The people here, they look up to you as a leader. You may not be the one in a generation anymore but you still have a lot more experience than they do. And I think the others have forgiven you, at least a little. They'd care about you if you went back to prison. I haven't done anything to merit that kind of respect or consideration."  
Faith pondered this for a minute trying to figure out how she could comfort Andrew without sounding fake. Then she remembered something that she had heard one of the other girls mention. "Didn't you plan to tell the story of Buffy? The story of the fight against the First?"  
Andrew looked up. "Yeah, but I wasn't really trying. I mean, that was my way of hiding my... Guilt. Anyway, I lost my camera."  
"Look, maybe it didn't make much sense to do it when it seemed like we were all going to die. But we made it.Someone has to tell the story."  
"Shouldn't Mr. Giles tell it? I mean after all he is the Watcher. This kind of thing is up his alley."  
"Last I heard the Watcher's Council went up in smoke.Someone else should step up and tell the tale."  
For the first time since the conversation began Andrew brightened. "Come to think of it, why should I stop with that story. I mean Buffy and her friends have been fighting vampires for seven years. There are hundreds of stories there all just waiting to be told. " He looked up. "I was just going to make some kind of videotape. If I were to write it down, it could corner the market on horror and fantasy!"  
"Now lets not get carried away. Just focus on getting the story down." Despite this Faith was glad to see that some of the gloom had lifted from around the young nerd."  
"You're right. A project like this, it could take years to get through.. Better just to start with one part and see where I can go from there. Besides I should probably get everybody's permission; after all this isn't my story alone. I'll have to talk to a lot of people." He began walking towards the motel then stopped suddenly.  
"Faith."  
"Yeah?"  
"Is it... Would it be OK if I could tell... your story?  
She felt a little uneasy about what he seemed to be asking. Andrew seemed to sense this.  
"Look I'm not saying that I would ever publish it. But maybe writing it down would help show future Slayers how powerful the lure of darkness is and how redemption can be found even when you don't think that it's in you." As she considered this, Andrew added: "Besides, it might enable you to put the things that you did... Behind you.'  
"I should never put them behind me. I need to remember them forever."  
"And if I wrote it down, you would." Andrew replied.  
Faith thought this over for several seconds. She wasn't wild about telling everything she had done wrong, yet she felt that maybe doing this would help her in the long run. "All right. You stay with the group, I will tell you the story. "  
"Thanks."  
"You know, it is pretty bleak."  
Andrew managed a weak smile. "Mine isn't much brighter." They both started walking back to the motel when Andrew stopped her again."Faith."  
"What else do you want?" There was a tiny bit of exasperation in her voice.  
"What's your last name?" Her surprise must have shown on her face, because he added: "It's been nearly a month and I realized that I never got it."  
"Do you know the last names of the other Slayers?"  
"No, and in time I'll get them all, but .. You're the only important person whose last name I never got."  
Faith thought about giving him some crap about how everyone who thought evil was important but then she realized she was simply dodging the question. "Wollenchek. Faith Wollenchek."  
Andrew took this in for a moment. Then he stuck out his hand. "Andrew Grusynzki. Pleased to meet you."  
Faith paused for a second, then smiled and shook it. The two of them stood there for a moment, taking in the absurdity and the darkness that surrounded both of them.  
After a moment, Andrew turned around and started walking back to the motel talking about his new project. Faith stood there realizing that she hadn't made a decision about what to do next. Then she realized that, in a sense, Andrew had made it for her. She followed him feeling somewhat more certain about the future then she had in a while.  
  
Considering that he had spent the better part of five months with his senses and all of his mental resources stretched to the limit, considering that he had just survived a battle that made Waterloo and Normandy seem like days at the seaside, and considering that he had spent much of the previous night up playing Dungeons and Dragons, one would have thought that Rupert Giles would have collapsed into a coma the second that his head hit the pillow. But then Giles had been through epic battles before (if not anywhere near this level of intensity) and he had found that coming down from the rush of adrenaline that came when you had fought to the limits of your abilities was a hard thing to come down from. Eventually, in the next couple of days, the body would finally catch up with his mind and he would probably sleep for days. But right now, all of his synapses were on fire and he was having an immense amount of trouble relaxing.  
Strangely enough, it was not the concerns about what new evil might arise. He had accepted the fact that something bad probably was going to happen. Some new evil would arise to counter the good that had been released; it had been happening since time began and would continue until it ended. However,there would probably be a cooling down period of at least a few months, maybe even as long as a year before whatever it was that was next would arise. There were, of course, any number of minor evils that would probably arise, but compared to what they had just fought (and to some of the things that they had dealt with in the past) they were little more than blips on the radar. No, what was keeping him up was his uncertainty of what he was going to do.  
When Buffy had told him how much she resented her job as the one of the generation, he didn't think that he had ever told her about how much he had tried to buck his own destiny. When he was Buffy's age, he had resented that his life had been chosen for him and that he was going to be one of the Watchers. He could understand her resentment because he had often wondered if this was all there was. (They had both rebelled against the boundaries of their jobs, but hers had involved nothing more than becoming a cheerleader, which, while unsettling was certainly better than experimenting with black magic.) Still, for the last ten years he had held on to being a Watcher. Even after Travers had fired him, even after Buffy had died, even when he had gone back to England, he had held fast to the idea that he was a Watcher.  
But now he had to face something that he had managed to put of facing because of the upcoming apocalypse: he no longer had a profession. The Watcher's Council de facto no longer existed, its headquarters destroyed by the First. Of all the hundreds of watchers who had worked for them, only a few dozen were still alive. The three thousand year old institution was defunct. Even if Buffy had not released the power of the Slayer, he would no longer have been able to work with her; at least not without a salary. So now he had to face something even more frightening than a politician who had become a full demon, or a monster-cyborg bent on creating a demon race, or a hellgod determined to find her way back home.Finding a job.  
It was a good thing that he had never had to look for some kind of job; the kind of resume that he had would practically guarantee that he'd never get a job anywhere. He imagined a smug old man interviewing him: Last place of employment? I owned a magic shop. I co-ran it with an ex-demon and it was destroyed by a grieving witch. These things happen, you know. He supposed he could get some kind of job as a librarian, but the fact was that particular job had only appealed to him when he had his own books to look at. And most of them were still in England.  
He supposed that he could return to his homeland, where they tended to ask fewer questions about what a person had done. But he had never really readjusted to being back at England. In the year he had returned to London when he had thought that Buffy no longer needed him, he had felt off. Everything was normal and reasonable, but it no longer felt quite like home. More often then not he found himself missing Buffy, or Willow, or (Lord have mercy) Spike. Home is where you have people that cared about him, and that was here.  
So he was probably going to stay here in America. But what would he do? What came next? Did Buffy still want to be a Slayer? Did she still need a Watcher? Where would he go now that his last two places of occupations had been destroyed? What would he do?  
Interrupting his chain of thoughts was a knock on the door. "Giles, are you up?" For a moment, he thought of telling Buffy to go to sleep, then he decided that he knew what she wanted to talk about and walked to the door.  
Buffy looked up. "Thanks, I wasn't sure...that you were still up." She entered the room.  
"How's Dawn doing?"  
"Oh, she fell asleep the second that her head hit the pillow. She hasn't gone through enough apocalypses to know about the adrenalin rush that comes with surviving."  
Giles thought about telling Buffy how her sister had cried herself to sleep after Glory had tried to use her as The Key, but then figured that particular scenario had brought more then enough grief for everyone concerned.  
"Is that what's keeping you up?"  
"Well, part of me is afraid that if I go to sleep the Primeval force of the First Slayer will kill me as I dream, and that's never a good." Buffy gave a smile that Giles had not seen on her face in a long time. Only now did it strike him how much pressure and strain that she--- all of them-- - had been undergoing for the past few months. "But there a lot of little things that are keeping me up now. Is it good when you stop staying up nights because you're worried about if you're going to live the next day and start staying up because you don't know whether you're going to work tomorrow?"  
"I would think worried about more mundane issues than life or death would be a relief."  
"So would I. Except it isn't just the mundane thingies that are keeping me up." Buffy sighed. "And I'm not alone."  
"Well, you forget I'm British. We are raised to be concerned." She smiled a little at that. "And sometimes we get worried about the wrong things." He took a deep breath.  
"Buffy, I'm sorry... About what... I tried to do with Spike.I did what I should not have done. You were right about him and I was wrong."  
She took this in. "Giles, it's OK. I know how I tend to get about..." long pause... "My boyfriends. And given some of my more recent decisions you had a right to be concerned. But.. I wish.. There could have been some other way to handle it."  
"AT least he died a champion." The words seemed hollow, but they did seem to do some good.  
"Anyway, now we can worry about other,less explosive, issues." She took a deep breath. "What kind of nastiness do you think that we let loose by releasing the power of the Slayer?" The expression of surprise on Giles' face must have been particularly evident, because she followed that by saying: "Hey I know what happens when we toy around a little with the natural order of things. And this one must have one doozy of a consequence."  
"Buffy, I don't know what might happen. There's never been anything remotely like this done before. This is way out of anyones league. I couldn't begin to predict... What might happen"  
"I was afraid of that."There still seemed to be a little level of concern in Buffy's face that Giles couldn't quite understand.  
"But I don't think you should let these things concern you. You're no longer alone in this. I think you could relax a little."  
Buffy smiled but this smile seemed to have a little bit of sadness in it." You'd think that I could too considering what's just fallen into my lap. I mean, all that I've wanted for...seven years has been to just be normal. To stop hanging around cemeteries. To stop having to face the big bad. To stop worrying that I'm going to die... And have it stick." They both shared a small smile at that. "I mean this has been all I've been doing for so long. But the fact is, doing this has always been something that I have been good at. I've been training for this for so long, it's helped me keep focused when I couldn't get readmitted to college, when I was working at DoubleMeat, when ... Mom.. " She stopped, then hurried on. " I'm not sure what else I can do. It doesn't help matters much that my college transcript and my past places of employment are now buried in the cold,cold ground. "  
"I am sorry that the losses we suffered were so great. It occurred to me to take most of my books on the bus; I never thought that there were things from home that you might want."  
"Hey, when you're trying to save the world it never occurs to you that losing anything except the lives of the people around you will turn out to be important. " Buffy sighed. "Funny, I lost almost everything that I owned and the only thing that I'm really sorry I lost was that trophy that Jonathan gave me for being Class Protector."  
Giles smiled as he remembered it. Even now, nearly four years later, it had struck him as one of the most moving gestures he had ever seen a group of young people do. "I guess you would want to have that. To remind you of what you were."  
Buffy nodded, then looked up. "Were?"  
"I... I'm sorry. Perhaps I'm being a bit presumptuous. I kind of figured now that the battle is over and now that you no longer have to carry the burden of being the only Vampire Slayer that you would be... "  
"Quitting?" she said.  
"I think retiring would be a better term."  
Buffy shook her head. "I keep thinking: what would Superman do?"  
Of all the things that she could have said, this probably ranked about as far down the list as Giles would have thought anything would. "Would you mind elaborating?  
"It's just all Superman ever wanted was a normal life. To be Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper. But being Superman was all that he knew how to do.And he always felt upset about not being everywhere at once. Everytime he saved the world, he went back to living both lives. Now granted, there was only one SUperman and there are now hundreds of Slayers, but am I just supposed to go back to being plain old Buffy Summers when there is still so much evil and pain in the world?"  
Giles took all this in. "Buffy, I think you've been hanging around Andrew for too long." This did provoke the smile that he had hoped for. "Wanting to do something to keep doing good is all right. But you don't have to carry the weight of the world anymore. You are entitled to take a sabbatical if you want."  
"I'm not Jewish."  
"Buffy..."  
"What? Just because I'm no longer the only Slayer doesn't give me the right to make bad jokes." She hurried on. "I'm all for chilling out for a while, but these problems aren't going to go away just because I'm taking time off."  
Giles just stood there for a moment, marveling at what he saw before him.  
"What I say?"  
"I'm just amazed at how much you really have grown up." She smiled again. "You know, it occurs to me that we never even noticed your birthday this year."  
"It's OK. Twenty two isn't as big a deal as twenty-one. Besides, I don't think that anyone was in the mood to celebrate."  
"Well, given the propensity of your birthdays turning into disastrous demon-related events perhaps that was for the best."  
"I don't know. It might have livened things up a little." They both pondered that. "So, if I was going to retire, what would you do?"  
"Excuse me?"  
"It's not that tough a question. If you didn't have me to watch, who would you work with?"  
"Interestingly, I was pondering that very problem. It now occurs to me, with all the new Slayers that have been released, there is going to be a need to recruit a new group of Watchers."  
"How many of the Watchers did the First kill?"  
Giles shook his head. "Before the First's minions blew up Council headquarters, they did a pretty effective job of killing most of the Watchers in the field. The Council had several minor facilities set up in places like Switzerland, Italy and Australia all of which were wiped out. Those who weren't gathered in those places were hunted down along with the other potential Slayers."  
"But you were in contact with some other Watchers. Willow got some call from a man named Robson in England...."  
Giles sighed. "Most of the contacts I had went underground. If I had to guess, there are probably less than a hundred Watchers still alive."  
"Shouldn't somebody assemble them and start reassigning them?"  
"Yes someone should. The problem is that most of the resources that we had are gone. Even if we could get all of them together, there's no way that those of us who were left could possibly train all of the Slayers that we have released."  
"So hire some new people."  
"Buffy, you can't just take the average person in off the street and expect him or her to not only take on the assumption that there are such forces of darkness in the world but also to shoulder the responsibility of keeping track of a young girl who now has this incredible ability. It needs to be taught over a period of time."  
"Yeah, because all of the Council's practice produced such fine work before."  
Giles might have taken offense at this remark had he not remembered all of the difficulties that Travers and the Watcher's Council had put Buffy through.  
"That's exactly the point. Even when the Council was at its peak, it relied on rituals that were archaic and borderline barbaric. The new ones will have to be brought into the present. Someone will have to do a lot of work screening them and making sure that they understand the importance not only of the Slayers and the Watchers, but about the relationship that needs to be built overtime. "  
"Sounds like the kind of the thing that you would be good at." Buffy said. Giles stopped and realized what he was saying.  
"Well, um it's not like I would want to do this, but..."  
"Giles, you were always a good teacher. If you hadn't been so good at being able to adapt to all the things that the Hellmouth threw at us, we probably wouldn't have survived most of the monster attack that we had to deal with."  
"I think you're giving yourself too little credit."  
"I know, power of the Chosen one, sacred duty, yadda yadda yadda. But Giles without your help, there is no way that I would have been able to do a lot of what I did. You were very good and I can't think of anyone else who I would want to see teaching the new generation of Watchers."  
For a moment Giles was afraid that he was going to start weeping. "Thank you. But even if I were to do that, I don't have anywhere near the resources or the people to start doing this."  
Buffy took this in. "Yeah. That is a problem." She paused. Giles assumed she was done.  
"Well, without breaking into song, where do we go from here?" Buffy remained silent. "Buffy?"  
"Hmm. Sorry I... Something just occurred to me." She fell quiet again. "Giles, if I could tell you that I might know of a place where we can get the materials that you would need, would you be willing to try to start in?'  
"I... Guess so." Giles said cautiously.  
"And you wouldn't be concerned about where it came from, as long as it helped in the long run against the fight against evil?"  
"I think so; what exactly are you getting at?"  
"Something that Angel kind of implied when he showed up."  
"This wouldn't have anything to do between him and you, would it?" Giles knew how dangerous the history was between the two of them.  
"No." Buffy said quickly. "It probably wouldn't involve us at all." He considered pressing the point but decided not to yet.  
"What's your idea?"  
Buffy shook her head. "Not yet. First things first. For the next few days, we're going to relax and unwind. Then we're going to have a talk."  
"You and I?"  
Buffy nodded. "And Willow. And Xander. And Dawn. Maybe Faith and Robin, if they decide to stick around. I'm not entirely sure what I have in mind or if they will all want to go along with it, but if they do I might be able to come up with something that will help all of us figure out what we do next."  
"You wouldn't like to drop a hint, perhaps?"  
"You'll know soon enough. However,I think I know where the last stop on our tour is going to be."  
"You mean..."  
She nodded. "We're going to L.A. 


	3. Chapter 3: Reunion Time

3.Reunion Time  
In her relatively brief time on this earth, Faith had rarely felt like she belonged. Maybe part of the problem with being the Slayer was that you always felt isolated from the people around you. Or maybe she had never fully felt that she was part of the Sunnydale Gang because they preferred Buffy to her. Even when she had been fighting alongside them she had not always felt like she had been with them.  
Which was one of the reasons that she felt the last week had been one of the best that she had ever had in a long time. Granted,her life before Sunnydale had not been a bowl of cherries, and doing time in Folsom is not generally considered conducive to a friendly environment. Nevertheless, over the past week, she had been feeling something that she had almost never felt. Like she was one of the gang.  
The amazing thing was they had done almost nothing compared to the intensity and the agony of the fighting that she had been going through for the past couple of months. She had been doing the kind of things that she guessed 'normal' teenagers did. Go shopping for things that didn't generally relate to killing monsters. Going to movies and some of the more interesting night life that existed in small towns. Playing Dungeons and Dragon. (She had only agreed to do this because she wanted to help Andrew but she had a surprising--- or maybe not so surprising--- capability to fighting monsters on pencil and paper.). If you had asked her if she had ever thought that she would be comfortable doing such things even as recently as three months ago, she would have laughed them off as a lunatic. Yet here she was doing all this, and feeling happy and real.  
To be honest, she had not expected that Buffy would have allowed her to stay with them now that the crisis had passed. Indeed, the day after she had unburdened part of her soul to Andrew, she had gone to the other members of the Scoobies and told them that she would be willing to do what ever they thought was appropriate. Including going back to Folsom.  
AT that Willow had started to blush. "Well, that's all very good, but...um.. technically you're no longer a part of the California penal system." This caused everybody to turn at the young witch.  
"Willow, what did you do?"  
"Well, when I figured that we would need Faith's help, I thought it might be inconvenient if someone came and took her back to jail. So... I hacked into the computer for the Folsom jail and changed her sentence from ten to twenty five years to three to ten years. So technically, Faith's been paroled."  
Faith took this in for a second. "Um, Will.. I broke out of prison. How do you get around that?"  
"Actually that was easy. See, with all the chaos that was going on in L.A., your escape was never officially reported to the police. Despite your spectacular exit, with the fire raining from the sky and the sun being blotted out, a lot of things kind of got lost in the shuffle."  
Faith had been tremendously moved by what Willow had done for her. It seemed to illustrate that the witch really had forgiven her. Unfortunately she did not get a chance to express it, because everybody else in the room started asking questions about what the hell Willow was talking about. This led to a very delayed story about the horror that had been running through L.A. for the past few months. It also led to the part neither Faith nor Willow had been anxious to relate about how Angel had lost his soul again.  
Buffy hit the ceiling. "Angel...voluntarily gave up his soul? What on Earth could have been so horrible that they tried that for? Even if he had been here, I would have known better than that." She went on like that for a good few minutes. But since none of the people who had been responsible for taking his soul were in the room, she was relatively quiet.  
  
Neither Willow nor Faith had decided to break the news that Angel had a son to Buffy. Willow had never seen Connor in all the uproar that had taken place while she was helping restore his soul. Faith had decided that it really wasn't her business to tell Buffy that the love of her life had in the past two years a) had sex which led to b) a child and c) that child was now fully grown. Not only would it disturb Buffy, she would be asking for details that she simply could not provide. Better to have Angel explain the hows and whys.  
After Buffy got her head around what she had heard, she had done something that surprised everyone: she had asked Faith to stay around with them until they had sorted out what they were going to do. She didn't need much more then a minute to decide that she was going to stay. Even if Robin hadn't been there,she probably would have reached the same decision. Most of the people who really cared about her were with her now. And they were on their way to meet the other people who did.  
Four days ago, Faith had made a tough decision of her own. She decided that she was going to give whatever it was that she had with Robin a chance to work. Therefore she decided to tell him about her past. Not all of it, but the ugly parts that had helped lead her down the path of the darkness which eventually ended in her going to prison.  
"I'm telling you all this because there is a lot of darkness inside of me." she said." I may have been able to work past some of it, but I haven't gotten rid of it. I think its under control, but I can not say for sure. I don't know if we have any real possibility of being able to work something out, but the only way that we do is if we know about what we are. Really are."  
Robin took all this and was silent for a couple of minutes--- something which Faith figured was good because he didn't get up and walk away. However, the longer that he stayed quiet, the more concerned the Slayer became. Finally the former principal looked up at her.  
"You know how my mother died." It wasn't a question.  
"A vampire killed her." Faith had known his mother was a Slayer so it seemed like a pretty safe bet.  
"No. Spike killed her." This was a real shock. Faith had noticed some hostility between the blond vampire and Robin but she could not have guessed the real cause.  
"When... When did you find out?"  
"Six weeks ago. " He gave a painful smile. "That was one of the things that the First told me. All of my life I have been training to fight the forces of darkness, and the ultimate one finally tells me what I've been searching for."  
"What did you do when you found out?"  
"I convinced Giles that he was a danger to all of us. Which was true, but it wasn't why I thought he should have been stopped. I made him distract Buffy while I took him to my home... To maim, torture and kill him."  
"No wonder B was so mad at Giles." Then Faith shook  
her head. "Look I think I know what you're trying to say, but it seems that you had every right to want to kill him."  
"That's what I told myself too. But.." He shook his head." All my life I have been trying to fight because I was a force of good. But when it came right down to it, I didn't want simple revenge. I wanted to make him suffer like I had suffered. I wanted him to know how truly vile and evil he really was. " He paused. "He said some pretty painful things to me. About what it was to be a slayer. I didn't want to know the truth. I really didn't care about anything else." He took a breath. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is darkness inside all of us, and if we don't face it down eventually it becomes master of us."  
Faith took this in. "I get that. It's just that it took me two murders and a coma to really learn that lesson."  
That got a smile from Wood. "SO you're what we in the education game call a slow learner. But you have shown that you have a capacity to develop." The smile faded. "Look, I'm not saying that any relationship we may or may not have will be smooth sailing. You've got issues, I've got issues. And I'd be lying if I said I was perfectly all right dating someone who once killed a man. But I think that there is a lot of good in you and I think that there is something worth working towards for both of us. And I'd like to be proven correct."  
It hadn't been as terrible as she had thought it would be nor had it turned out as good as she thought that it could have. Still it was something to put her back against. So when two days later, Buffy took Faith and Robin aside along with the rest of the Scoobies and told her about the plan that she had, Faith decided to get on board.  
"You're not just doing this because of me, are you?" Robin had asked.  
"Well, you certainly think very highly of yourself.' Then before he got offended, she went on. "It's partly about you. But mainly its because I still think that I have a ways to go before I find redemption. This may not off set what I did in the past but it will probably help in the long run." She smiled at that. Robin noticed.  
"Care to share?"  
"It's just... Never used a phrase like that before. Never given much thought to the long run."  
"Well, maybe you're getting more mature."  
"It's about time."  
Which brought them to where they were now. In L.A. Roughly three miles away from the Hyperion, the hotel that Angel Investigations called home.  
"You sure that we are on the right path?" Giles said to Willow.  
"Just a couple of more miles and then hang a right." she said. She turned to Faith. "This looking familiar?"  
"I guess so. But you have to remember, I came here from the east."  
"Oh. Sorry."  
Faith walked back to Robin.  
"Just so I'm clear on this. We are going to meet Buffy's first boyfriend." Faith nodded. "Another vampire with a soul."  
"That's right."  
"Do they all come with souls now, or is this something that's limited strictly to people Buffy dates?"  
"As far as I know Angel was the only one to have a soul. Some kind of curse. I don't know how Spike got his."  
"Well, if they're just handing them out like Cracker Jack prizes, you got to wonder about the people who are in charge of things like this." Robin said. There was a trace of the old hostility in his voice.  
"Look, I know that the whole working with a vampire thing is never going to make you happy. However, there are two things that I think I need to point out. First,that soul really does make a difference. When vampires are soulless monsters they really are brutal killing machines. A soul really does seem to make them better. They can be heroes. I know you didn't like Spike, but believe me when I tell you he died a hero." Faith gave Robin a second to process all this and then went on. "Second of all, Angel is really different from Spike. Maybe cause he spent so much time suffering with his burden. He knows about pain and about redemption. He really is a major force to be reckoned with. If it wasn't for him..." She paused again. "I probably wouldn't be here."  
The former principal took this in. "He really saved you." Again, not a question.  
"No, I made the decision to save myself. But without his guidance, I would never have known that it could have been made." She sighed. "The truth is, he tried to save me after I...killed the Deputy Mayor. Maybe if he had gotten through to me then, we could have avoided all the horrible stuff that ended up happening."  
"Maybe." Robin said. "On the other hand, maybe if you hadn't done what you did, Buffy would have never been able to stop the Mayor. Maybe you wouldn't be here now."  
Faith thought this over. "Well, I think if I had a choice I would have avoided nearly dying. Take it from B.; it's not nearly as fun as it sounds."  
"Sorry, I wasn't thinking."  
"I know. I've been thinking things over ever since I got out of jail. Being bad is a lot easier than doing good. But all it ever did for me was drive me further and further away from people. Even when I thought that I was doing good, I really was more out of step than I thought. This is how I'm going to earn my redemption." She smiled. "What about you?"  
"Me?"  
"Come on. I've got this whole sacred duty bit down plus this is about all I can do. You have more options."  
"Well, I think my promising career in the field of education was cut down when my school fell into the Earth." The smile faded. "Buffy's got a good idea. I'll admit I'm not wild about working with a vampire ,but I'm flexible. I want to do good and this is probably the best way to do it." He sighed. "I just wish that we could have talked to somebody in L.A. before we journeyed all the way out here."  
"Me too. I don't think Angel will turn us away at the gate, but it would have been nice to know that nothing had happened to them." Faith thought for a second."Of course there has been a lot going on in L.A. the last couple of month. Maybe the Hellmouth being sealed led to some demons coming up this way."  
"You really think that they'd travel this far?"  
"From what I know demons migrate to cities where there is  
a high  
concentration of evil. I t's not as bad as being  
on top of a hellmouth, but this can be pretty close."  
"Well, I think were going to find out how much trouble we're walking into. I think we're here."  
Indeed, Giles had just pulled up at the big hotel."All right, how are we going to do this? Just all of us come out and... Ask for a room? Or Buffy, would you like to see..." He left the sentence unfinished but Faith knew what he was thinking.  
"I think maybe that those of us from Sunnydale should get out and talk to him. Everyone else can get off; just don't wander too far away." Buffy and Giles got off first, followed by Willow, Xander and Dawn. Faith stayed with Robin. As the other slayers began getting off the bus, the Sunnydale contingent walked into the lobby of the Hyperion.  
"Whoa." said Willow after seeing the lobby.  
"Second that' said Xander. Faith wondered what the deal was until she got there.  
The lobby looked a lot different than when she had seen scarcely six weeks ago. The weapons chest was still there,so was the front desk. But surrounding it were a bevy of pillows and bed sheets. They were everywhere.  
"What, did Angel have a slumber party with all the demons instead of fighting them?" said Xander.  
"I'm sure there's a perfectly...logical...No, on second thought there is no good reason for these things to be here." said Giles.  
"Logic didn't have much to do with it, honey." Everybody looked up at the landing where the voice had come from.  
If the people in the lobby hadn't come from a Hellmouth, they might have been disturbed or at least surprised at the sight of the green-skinned demon with small horns who had just spoken to them. AS it was, all that happened was that Xander muttered: "Wow. A demon with dress sense. Now I have seen everything."  
Willow walked forward . "Hey Lorne,where is everybody?"  
"Hey Willow. I guess you managed to stop the apocalypse after all."Lorne said. "And these must be the rest of the Sunnydale crew. Congratulations. You must have had a hell of a time."  
"Really. What exactly has the news been out of there?" asked Faith.  
"You mean the party line? Apparently the town of Sunnydale was at the center of a 8.7 earthquake. And let me tell, when it hit we really did feel the earth move baby. I mean,it was just a small tremor, but the second I felt I figured something really big has happened for the last time."  
"Gee, and I thought I was the master of understatement. " said Xander.  
"Did you get any other feelings about what had happened?" asked Willow.  
"Well, there was some concern that maybe the Hellmouth had swallowed you alive, but we got some intelligence that, with the exception of a few casualties you made it out."  
"Intelligence? From whom?" asked Giles.  
"Let me guess. You're a Watcher." said Lorne.  
"Um..ahh.. Yes. And you would be?"  
"But where are my manners. My name is Lorne, I guess you could say I'm the demon contact and entertainer for Angel Investigations."  
"Well, I'm Buffy. You know Willow and Faith. This is my sister Dawn.My friend Xander. Giles my Watcher. And Principal Wood." The others said their hellos.  
"Well, we've heard a lot of stories about you. Seems every year you're saving the world."  
"Well you know after the first five Armageddons, you just stop counting. I mean its not like we get any prizes or special value menus for dealing with these things." said Xander.  
"I know the feeling. We've been only dealing with one apocalypse but it just feels... Wait a minute." The Host's eyes darted back to Robin. "You're the principal of Sunnydale High?"  
"Well, Principal-evil fighter. I guess you could say I'm a jack of- all trades."  
"I've been down that road my friend" He shifted his glance to the outside. "Who's in the bus? One last group of field trip students."  
"You could say that. "said Buffy. "So where's Angel? Upstairs?"  
"Um. Well. You see. He's at our new center of operations. I've sort of been staying here to direct those who come for help to our new place of business."  
"Which is?" Lorne seemed to be stalling.  
"Wolmrm and Hmrt." He spoke very quickly.  
"Excuse me?"  
The Host sighed. "Wolfram and Hart." The silence upon hearing this lasted for three seconds.  
"Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Angel is working with Wolfram and Hart?" said Faith. "The same law firm that hired me to kill him?"  
"Well, uh.."  
"The same company that brought Darla and then Drusilla back to screw with his head?" said Giles.  
"Well..."  
"They've been messing with him for three years and now he's working for them?" said Willow incredulously.  
"Did Angel lose his mind when he lost his soul?" said Xander.  
"Yes. What exactly is going on here?"  
"OK. Funny story. "said the Host. "Actually,not so much a funny story as a bloody gruesome slaughter and apocalypse which led to the complete demise of everyone working there." He paused. "Although killing them didn't mean that they stopped working there..."  
"You're telling me that Angel would just walk into the place that he hated with a passion for three years and set up shop over their graves? That's cold even for Deadboy." said Xander.  
"They got tired of losing to him so they agreed to give him L.A." Everybody turned towards Buffy.  
"How did you...Did Angel tell you?" said Giles.  
"Not in so many words, but that is what he implied. "  
"Did you know this and not tell us?"  
"I didn't know. I sorta figured. Angel knew way too much about the First to have just found it. And Wesley didn't have anywhere near the kind of information to just give it. There was only one place in L.A. that would have supplied him with that level of detail."  
"The people at Wolfram and Hart did have a lot of stuff on Sunnydale." admitted Lorne. "It was one of the reasons he took their offer."  
"I've heard of making deals with the Devil before; I just never thought that it would be so literal." Giles spoke in a tone that seemed to mix disapproval with resignation.  
"Hey,we were all opposed to the idea at first.But they have a lot of things that would be useful in the fight against darkness." The Host paused. "Plus talk about your A-List client base.... Ben Affleck, Keanu Reeves,Celine Dion, there are some real forces."  
"Lorne..."  
"Anyway. Did you come here just to say hello, or was there a more pressing matter?"  
"I wanted to see Angel to tell him that the second wave was off and to offer him and the rest of the people at Angel Investigations a proposition." Buffy said. She glanced towards the bus. "I also figured that maybe you would be willing to put us up for a little while; at least until we figure this out."  
"Well,seeing as we're not expecting any large parties for a while, I guess you could crash here for the time being." Lorne said.  
Buffy turned to the others. "Get everybody in here. Tell them that they can each have their own room; that should get them moving." Giles and Willow moved out to the bus.  
"I bet it's been a while since you've had this place with this many people." said Dawn.  
Lorne began to shift a little uneasily. "Actually, it's been less time than you'd think."  
"Is this part of the same story that ends with Wolfram and Hart under new ownership?" asked Xander.  
"Pretty much. I'd tell you about it, but I'm pretty sure that you're gonna want to hear it straight from Angel's mouth."  
Buffy was looking around uncomfortably. "Do you have Angel's current number? I think he'd probably want to hear from me before I show up on his door."  
"I know that I would." Lorne took out a cell phone and handed it to her. "Speeddial 1."  
Buffy flashed him a grin of thanks before walking into another room.  
"OK, I know that it's none of my business but does anyone else think that the two of them should be back together?"said Xander.  
Dawn turned to him. "Look Xander, I know you've never been the biggest booster of Angel and I do admit that I'm not sure that its OK for them to be working so close together. But its been two years since they've seen each other. I think Angel's moved on; I know Buffy has. I think that what she's planning has a lot of merit. Now can you get past that or do you just want to leave now?"  
There was a long pause. "When did you become so insightful?" Xander finally said.  
"It happens from time to time. Probably won't happen again for a while." said Dawn.  
"Besides, given what happened in Sunnydale, I don't think she'll be that quick to get on this ride again." said Faith.  
Buffy reentered the room just as Giles and Willow reentered leading the rest of the Slayers. "Did you..." started Willow.  
The blond girl shook her head. "I'm not quite ready to see him, but I should be by 9 tomorrow. "She turned to the Slayers. "OK,as I promised we have reached the last stop. I know that you'll all be glad that you finally will each be able to have your own room." Looking at Kennedy, she said: "With some exceptions." As Willow blushed, she went on: "I want to thank everybody for coming this far on trust. I would have told you what my plan is, but I'm still not entirely sure that it will work out. I can assure you that after tomorrow, I will be asking you to make another decision. It won't be life or death this time, but it will effect what you decide to do with the power that we have given you. I have decided on what happens next for me. What happens next is in your hands. Be ready." As they all stood around her, she said:"Um that's all. We'll see you for breakfast tomorrow"  
As the other Slayers walked around the hotel lobby, Faith walked towards Buffy. "I got to tell you really have this leader thing down cold,B. You sure that you're ready to give it up?"  
"I haven't been this sure of anything in a while. Whatever happens, I think that I've made the right choice. The rest is up to...the others."  
Faith knew who Buffy was referring to but new better then to press. She had a lot of confidence in her fellow Slayer, and she had some for Angel. She hoped that the two things came together for everyone's sake.  
  
Considering the power that she had wielded (and still did, though it was no longer unique to have it) Buffy had rarely been afraid of anything. There had been periods where she had been scared of some of the big monsters that she had had to fight. But most of the time she used her adrenalin to get her past her fear. If she hadn't she would have collapsed into a puddle soon after she had fought the Master, for God's sake.  
Now however she was afraid of two separate things. First of all, there was the fear of what she going to do with the rest of her life. This was the kind of thing that every young person was afraid of at one point. Of course, a lot of those people had graduated college and had a career in mind. And none of them--- or very few of them--- had to worry about death by vampire and didn't think that far ahead. So that was part of the worry.  
However, the bigger fear was how she was going to react when she saw Angel again. Over the past three years she had thought that she had gotten over her first boyfriend. She had other relationships (granted, neither had ended particularly well) and after three years she had thought that she was over him. Indeed, she had managed to convince the others into coming here on the idea that she was. What she had omitted was the rush of feelings that she had felt upon seeing him for the first time in nearly two years. Indeed,several nights before she had gone to sleep she had replayed that kiss over and over again. She kept wondering: had Angel felt it too? He had seemed jealous when he learned she was with Spike. Was it some residual jealousy from the own relationship? Unhappiness that his grandsire had a part of Buffy that he never had? Or was it possible that he felt something for her?  
This didn't do wonders for her state of mind. It didn't help matters that she was in the lobby of the building that had spent the better part of four years trying to warp Angel over to the Dark Side. Lorne had reassured her that everybody here was working for them, but as far as she knew evil attorneys looked just the same as good attorneys (if such a thing existed).  
"Are you sure he knows that we're in the building?" she asked the secretary.  
"Mr. Angel knows about your importance. He's just getting the rest of his staff together."  
"Staff? Angel has a staff now?" said Xander.  
"Well, I guess they're more like the board of directors. Mr. Gunn is our new chief of security, Miss Burkle is in charge of weapons and science, and Mr. Wyndham-Price is in charge of history and prophecies."  
"Wyndham---Christ. I thought Wesley was insufferable before." said Xander.  
"Xander,stop it. Wesley's.. Changed a lot." said Willow.  
"And Lorne is in charge of your entertainment division?" said Faith.  
"He's more of an outside contractor then a staffer."  
"I guess that makes sense. " said Giles.  
"Wait a minute." Buffy had been counting names and one had been conspicuous with it's absence. " What about Cordelia?"  
"Umm...I believe Miss Chase is on the fourth floor." The secretary looked a little uncomfortable.  
"She must be feeling right at home. Finally she has a lot of people to follow her orders."  
"Dawn, quiet." There was something in the secretary's tone. As if she was hiding something.  
Just then a door opened. "Ah there they are." Everyone got up. "Mr. Angel, your nine o'clock is here."  
For a moment, the two groups of people looked at each other. Buffy, who had spent a lot of her life observing things in a second took it all in. Five people were standing there--- well four people and Lorne, if you wanted to get specific.  
Two of the people Buffy had never seen before. The first was a medium sized bald black man in his twenties.He seemed unassuming enough but Buffy could tell from his eyes that he was obviously a fighter, probably a very good one. Standing somewhat to the left of him was a girl about the same age with brown hair that flowed to her shoulders. She seemed shy (though her face did brighten up when she saw Willow) but there was steel in her eyes as well.  
She knew the third man there, but she scarcely recognized Wesley. The tweed and the glasses were gone, and in their place was a lot of stubble and a messy haircut. But his whole expression made him appear to be a harder man. Faith had mentioned the difference but it really was astounding. And he didn't seem as happy as the others to see them.  
All of this she took in as background because her eyes had been drawn to the figure at the forefront. She knew that Angel never changed but she had never expected that the sight of his face would bring such comfort to her. She wanted to rush towards him but somehow she controlled herself and walked slowly towards him.  
"Angel." she said. Model of composure.  
"Buffy." Ditto.  
They stood there for a moment. Then at the same time, they moved towards each other and embraced. She knew that all of her friends and probably all the lawyers were looking on, but she didn't give a damn. She had found him again. Very slowly she raised her mouth to his. Like it had in the crypt nine days ago, the touch of his lips on hers sent electricity running through her nerve endings.  
"Man, they told me about this but I never thought I'd see it." The tall black man appeared to be somewhat surprised.  
"Um, maybe we should stop them before Angel gets, you know, happy?"That startled the two of them into breaking apart though they still remained close to each other.  
Xander walked up to him. "Normally, I'd make some smart about getting a room but since we know what comes after that I'll just say this. Angel. I have not missed you one bit."  
Willow jabbed Xander in the ribs. "Can't you say one nice thing about him?"  
"All right. I'd rather see you kissing Buffy then Spike." That brought the mood down in a hurry.  
Angel looked at Buffy. "Does everybody know?"  
"Ah,yeah pretty much."  
"I didn't. And I'm not sure I want to know anything else about it." said the black man.  
"You and me both. By the way, I'm Xander Harris."  
"Charles Gunn." The two men shook hands. " I guess you got through the end of the world."  
"Well you know, in Sunnydale it's pretty much a weekly thing. BY the third time, it's pretty much 'been there, done that.' I mean you can't even get frequent flyer miles with them, so it's not like it means much"  
"Well, I'm still getting used to it. The past three months, I kept thinking that things can't get any worse and then?"  
"Like I said, been there, done that."  
"What happened to your eye?"  
"Oh that's a long story."  
"A psycho preacher gouged it out." said Dawn.  
"Apparently not that long." The tall girl in the meantime walked over to Willow and Faith.  
"Well, it's good to see that both of you managed to survive the end of the world. I mean not the real end of the world, cause it didn't come. I mean not that what happened wasn't serious or anything, it's just well, it's hard to know what an apocalypse is like when you go through it that's not saying you didn't?"  
"Fred." Willow said gently.  
"You're still seeing someone else, aren't you?" The young witch nodded. "Is she here?"  
"Yes. I mean, not here in the sense that she's here with us. I mean there are a lot of people here with us, but they're not all here here with us. Some of us are here and some are at the Hyperion, and that's the here where she is.'  
Faith ,who had been watching all this with an expression of amusement, said: "You know in prison this qualifies as foreplay." Both of the other women started blushing.  
Buffy looked at Angel." I guess Spike didn't feel like coming to see this." She looked away. She didn't know what his reaction would be to the news that his grandchild was dead.  
The dark-haired vampire got the message. "Buffy, I'm sorry."  
"It's OK. He died.. Good. A champion."  
"Wait,we're supposed to be sad that an evil vampire died." said Gunn.  
"I'm not so sure why it works out like that. Apparently having a soul covers a multitude of sins." said Robin.  
"That reminds me." Dawn then walked up to Wesley and slapped him. The ex-watcher winced a little. "What the hell were you people thinking when you took away Angel's soul?"  
For a moment a bit of the old Wesley emerged. "You have to understand the situation was very dire. "  
"So you thought that bringing Angelus back would help matters?" said Xander. "That ranks right up there with burning the village in order to save it as bad plans."  
"The information that we received was faulty. But Angel agreed that it had to be done to help the situation."  
"So you thought that someone who attempted to destroy the world would be willing to help save it. "Giles' tone had some of the old Watcher in it. "As someone who knew what Angelus was capable of , you should have known better. And I know that Cordelia would have told you otherwise."  
"Speaking of which, where is she?" Willow was frantically trying to guide the conversation back to safer ground. IN this she apparently failed because that question brought a look of discomfort to the face of everyone Buffy could see that Angel seemed in more distress then the others.  
Angel finally spoke. "She's in a coma." This brought a certain level of surprise to the rest of the Sunnydale contingent.  
"What happened?" There was another long pause. Suddenly Buffy got a sense of something that she had missed. Whatever had been going on in the past few months had been at least as serious as what they had been dealing with.  
"Um maybe we should go inside. It's been a long couple of months and you deserve an explanation" said Angel.  
"Whoa, and we don't?" said Gunn" The way I heard,Sunnydale is no longer on the map. You didn't come here and bring everybody just to suck face with your old boyfriend. Does this mean that some fresh hell is going to open up on us?"  
"Hey buddy, not to knock the sun turning black and the rain of fire, but we've just come from beating back something that make your big ugly look like Kermit the Frog." Xander counted  
"Really? Are you telling me that in the past three weeks you didn't turn on your TV once? If you had, you'd know that we were fighting a damn god."  
"Uh, so 'been there, done that."  
"Guys, put it back in." Both men reluctantly turned to her. "Look,we're all here. We'll tell you about what we had to go through and you can tell us what happened that led you to this swanky address. OK?" Both men nodded. "Is there a place more private where we can talk?"  
"Um. There's a conference room around here somewhere." said Angel.  
"Then let's go. We have a lot to talk about." The group of people started walking only to stop when Angel hesitated.  
"Buffy. I don't mean to split hairs, but have I met that guy before." He pointed to Robin.  
"He was the principal of Sunnydale High. He was a big help in the fight against the First." At this Angel looked very shocked. "You OK?"  
"I'm sorry. It's just...I've seen a lot of weird things at Sunnydale, I've seen a lot of strange stuff here. But if you're telling me that someone that young could work his way up that high in the educational system, there is definitely something twisted with the people at Sunnydale High."  
Robin turned to Faith. "I think I've been insulted but I'm not sure."  
"Angel, you know what happened with the principal before the original Sunnydale High blew up.?" The vampire nodded at Willow. "Well, maybe we should give the school board more credit for making a better choice than when the Mayor was picking and choosing."  
Angel thought this over for a minute. "I'm sorry. IT's just one last odd thing to deal with. If Buffy says you're OK that's good enough for me. I just don't want to see anything bad happen to Faith."  
The group again began walking to the door. Robin spoke in a stage whisper to Faith: "Does he know that you and I are sleeping together?"  
"Well, if he didn't he will now. He's got great hearing."  
Robin winced. "This is going to be fun." 


	4. Chapter 4: The Stories and The Plan

4.The Story and The Plan  
Giles looked at the clock on the wall. According to it, the two groups had been telling their various stories for three hours. He had done some of the talking but most of the conversation had been dominated by Buffy, Willow and Xander from the Sunnydale contingent and Wesley, Angel and Fred from the Los ANgeles group. Indeed the L.A. story had taken slightly longer because it went back longer ; almost two years. This story had a lot of interruptions.  
When Angel explained how Darla had turned up at the Hyperion eight months pregnant, Giles himself had uttered :"That's not possible!" and was very peeved when he heard the explanation about it being manipulated by a higher power. "It's plays with the bloody natural order of things. Vampires can not get pregnant!" The idea somehow offended his sensibilities more than the idea that Angel had had sex or that a Vampire Hunter from the 1770's could somehow be transported to the present.  
The next interruption came when Fred (after Wesley and Angel had looked awkwardly at each other for a minute) explained the circumstances which had led to Wesley turning Connor over to Holtz. The outburst had not come from Buffy or Faith but rather from the last person Giles had expected: Xander.  
"Well, Wes I gotta hand it to you:I didn't think that it would have been possible to make a bigger mistake than you did with Faith. But this really takes the proverbial cake. Not only did you betray all your friends, you gave them to the last person of all the dozens of people you could have chosen that it should have gone to. Way to go."  
Wesley had taken all this in. Then he walked over to Xander. "Since you weren't in my situation, you have no right to judge me. I did what I thought was in the best interest of the child. "  
"And look how good that turned out."  
"Xander, its OK..." Angel ,of all people, tried to defend him. Xander whipped around on him.  
"I wouldn't talk Deadboy. If what you're telling me is correct, we came within a hairsbreadth of being annihilated because of something that you did and something that he did.. Now you've never been the posterboy for doing the wisest thing, so I can deal with that. What's his excuse?"  
"He didn't have a choice." shouted Fred.  
"Yes he did. He had a choice. He didn't have a good choice but he had one. And if you don't have the courage to trust people who are supposed to be your friends, then maybe you deserved what you got."  
For a moment Giles wondered if Xander had gone too far and that he might strike him. The other ex-watcher walked towards him. Xander's gaze never faltered. "What, you want to take a swing at me, monarchy boy? Bring it on. I've been fighting big nasties for so long I could use someone fighting me that I have a chance of taking."  
Wesley just stood there for a moment. Then he did the last thing that Giles had thought he would have expected.  
"You're right, Xander." The smart mouthed boy did a double take and he wasn't alone.  
"What?"  
"For the past ten months I've been trying to tell myself that what I did was the only thing that could be done. That I had no choice given the options I had. But I became so focused on the prophecies and on everything that I had been trying to learn about Connor that I completely shut out the people who might have been able to help. I thought that everybody turned away from me, but the truth of the matter is I turned you away first."  
AT this Angel began to shuffle about awkwardly. "You didn't deserve to have your throat cut. Or for the rest of us to shun you."  
"Maybe not.But afterwards you all tried to take me back and all I did was push everyone else away. And I kept saying that you never gave me a chance to defend myself. Maybe I couldn't even convince myself that I had been right."  
"Wait a minute? You got your throat cut?" The once astute boy had gotten fixated on an earlier point. "How come you're still breathing?"  
"I don't know." For a moment Wesley's eyes went hard. "By all rights,that bitch should have killed me." Then they went back to normal. "When she did I thought: this is what I deserve. A traitor's fate is all that I am entitled to."  
For a moment there was an awkward silence. Then another unlikely person spoke up.  
"Maybe you were left alive because they wanted you to redeem yourself." Faith walked over to the man she had once tried to kill and took his hand. "Maybe they knew what part you had to play."  
Wesley gave a small smile. "I know what you're trying to say but given the events over the last few months, I'm no longer sure I even believe in that kind of thing. I don't think any of us do."  
"What makes you so sure of that?" said Willow.  
"There's more of the story to tell."  
And so Wesley told about how Cordelia, driven to near death by the blinding visions she had been having had become part demon in order to survive. (At this Dawn said: "How much of her did they really have to change?") Then Angel told how Holtz had taken Connor into the demon dimension Quortoth supposedly disappearing forever. And how less then a month later, Connor had broken free, a warrior teenager raised to kill his father.  
Fred had then explained how both Cordelia and Angel had disappeared for several months: Angel because Connor had imprisoned him at the bottom of the sea, Cordelia because she had been called to be a higher being (or so they had believed).  
At this Buffy, who had been unusually quiet, spoke up. "And neither of you thought that this would be of interest to anybody in Sunnydale?"  
Gunn and Fred looked at each other awkwardly. Clearly this was a sore point between them  
"Well, we weren't quite sure..." said Fred.  
"WE didn't know what good you..." said Gunn at the same time.  
"What could you have done?" they both finished.  
"Well, for two months I had dreams that Angel was trapped somewhere. I tried to call him a dozen times and you never got back to me." Buffy was looking at them very sternly.  
"Yeah, well you obviously knew the way from Sunnydale to here. So you sure took the time out of your busy schedule to come on down." said Gunn matching her stare.  
"All right. " said Willow. "There was a lot going on. Let's just say that there was a misfire in communications and get on with the story."  
The rest of the story went on a bit quicker.Wesley explained how he Angel had been rescued and how he had exiled his son. How Cordelia had come back weeks later seemingly with amnesia and later returned with news of a great evil. No one interrupted, but Giles could sense that Angel when talking about Cordelia seemed to be restraining himself. He wasn't sure why but he thought that Angel wasn't talking about Cordelia for a reason.  
They explained about the arrival of the Beast. How he had brought about the rain of fire and blocked out the sun. How Cordelia had told them that Angelus knew something about the beast and that they needed him.  
At this point Robin interrupted. "Let me get this straight. You gain your soul back and you lose your memory? I thought the whole point of this soul business was that you had to remember every bad thing you ever did."  
Now everybody was shifting around awkwardly. Wesley finally spoke. "WE believed that the reason that there was no record of the Beast was because it came from an alternate universe and had the power to erase it's existence. We thought that in the past when Angelus had... Been at his prime... He might be able to remember what Angel couldn't."  
"So you thought that bringing back a soulless killer to fight a soulless killer was a good idea. " said Xander. "Makes perfect sense."  
"In retrospect its clear that we were being manipulated by someone else." said Wesley. "Someone who had been playing us from the beginning."  
Looking at the others, an idea hit Giles. Something that would explain why Cordelia wasn't awake and why everybody was tiptoeing around the subject of what had happened to her.  
"Cordelia was the one who was manipulating the Beast." Everyone turned towards him. Of the Sunnydale contingent, only Xander seemed somewhat shocked by this information.  
"Of course! I should have known." said Willow. "I saw her aura; it was filled with negative energy. I thought it had something to do with her being worried about Angelus but.... If I had only looked closer."  
"Don't beat yourself up." said Faith. "I thought something was up with her when I saw her. I just figured that she was still pissed that I'd tried to kill her."  
"I always knew that Cordelia had bad vibes in her; I just didn't think she had it in her to be an evil mastermind." said Dawn.  
Of the group only Buffy seemed to be noticing the feelings of the others. Xander had gone very quiet when he had heard Giles' pronouncement. She turned to him.  
"It was the demon that was doing this, right?" He walked over to Angel. "The demon that she took on took her over? That's why she did what she did,right?"  
Giles knew that something was very wrong. Granted it had been nearly four years since the two had seen each other, but Xander normally wouldn't have asked the vampire for anything unless the fate of the world depended on it.  
"Xander, we don't know. The fact is we have no idea who was pulling the strings in this. Cordelia has been in a coma ever for almost a month; we have no idea if she's evil or whatever had been working through her is."  
"A coma? What... What the hell did you do to her?"  
"Xander, let him explain..."  
"SHUT UP!" If Buffy had not been a slayer, Xander might have pushed her into the wall. As it was, she fell back in surprise as much as anything else."You always take his side! Doesn't it matter that she took on being a demon for him, and that he screwed his former sire for kicks and brought this whole mess on our heads! When does it start being his fault?" At this something in Xander seemed to break and he just fell to the ground.  
No one was sure quite what to do next. Then Willow walked over to Xander and put her arms around him. "It's OK, Xander. Just let it out." The young boy just began to shake and quiver. . "I know what she meant to you." He seemed to gain strength from being near his best friend. Eventually he looked up.  
"I'm sorry, Angel. I know this wasn't your fault."  
The vampire looked at him for a minute. "Maybe it is. "  
"Angel, no." said Fred. "Someone else had been using her."  
"And why was that?" The dark vampire was showing feelings he hadn't seen before about anyone except Buffy. "She just wanted to be an actress. I was the one who needed redemption, not her."  
Wesley turned to him. "From what I understood, she chose to work for you. This was her decision as much as yours. You can't blame yourself for that."  
"Yeah. I guess."  
Xander turned toward Angel. "Tell us the rest of it. What she did. What happened next."  
And so Angel told how Cordelia had stolen the orb that housed his soul. How she had manipulated the rest of them into thinking that they had restored his soul and then let him out of his cage. How she had murdered Lilah, the Sun God and the family of wizards who could have taken the Beast. And how she had manipulated Connor into making love to her so that she could become pregnant, how she had used the boy into fighting against Angel, all so that she could give birth to the great evil that would be known as Jasmine.  
There had then been a period of awkwardness when they tried to explain exactly why she was evil.  
"So she made everybody feel good and vivacious and alive." said Buffy. "The horror. The horror."  
"She took away free will." said Fred. "She took over the state of California."  
"How come this all slipped by you? Didn't you watch TV?" said Lorne.  
"The power went all twonky in Sunnydale soon after me and Faith got back." said Willow.  
"Besides, nobody was doing much except fighting against the First." said Dawn.  
"Oh. Right."  
Then Fred explained how she had seen the true face of Jasmine. How she had managed to get the people of Angel Investigations into seeing her as well. How they had hid in the sewers and found the one creature that had known what she was. How Angel had finally managed to show the world her true face. And how Connor, disillusioned by the knowledge of what he was and what he had been used for, had killed Jasmine before she could destroy the world.  
Angel told the last bit about Lilah's reappearance,how Wolfram and Hart had offered them their L.A. Office and how he had accepted with the condition that Connor be allowed to live a normal life without any real knowledge of his parents or his destiny.  
"Lilah isn't still here, is she?" asked Faith.  
"No, she's back.. At the home office." Wesley had a look of pain on his face that Giles didn't quite understand.  
"Good. Cause I got to tell you, I'm getting just a little tired of seeing the dead walking around normally." said Willow.  
"So after nearly four years of trying to wipe you out, they gave you all of these resources because they were tired of losing to you. " Robin seemed to be having trouble getting his head around this.  
"Well, they said that by defeating Jasmine we had stopped world peace from coming about." said Gunn. The people at Angel Investigations seemed a little uncomfortable at admitting what seemed to be Jasmine's goal.  
"This creature. It took away people's free will, made them all slaves ate people and this was supposed to bring about peace on earth?" said Giles.  
"Well, when you put it liked that it really doesn't sound that great." Fred responded.  
"Besides, if things hadn't worked out in Sunnydale, there would have only been peace on earth for about a week." said Willow.  
"And I guess that's a segueway to what has been going on in the town formerly known as Sunnydale." said Lorne.  
Giles was about to begin talking when he noticed that Buffy was looking at Angel. The vampire seemed on the verge of tears. She walked up and put her arms around him.  
"Angel, I'm sorry about what happened to Connor. I know that he must have meant everything to you."  
"He had the most horrible life imaginable, and I don't think he ever really loved me, but..."  
"You would have done anything for him."said Buffy. "And that's what you did."  
For a moment, everyone just stood around awkwardly while Buffy comforted Angel. Then the vampire gathered his strength and asked: "So how did the fight against the First Evil go?"  
"You know, I never thought that what we went through would ever be a pleasant change of topic." said Xander.  
"I guess when you do what we do for so long, anything seems possible." said Willow.  
"Um, when you say the First, you don't mean first as in the actual first evil. We're talking metaphorical right?" said Fred.  
"No we are speaking literally. " said Giles.  
"But...according to the journals, the First evil was incapable of taking a corporeal form" said Wesley. "How then could it become real?"  
"For most of the past year, it has been working through its priests. The Harbingers --- hundreds, perhaps thousands of them--- began a calculated strike to eliminate the entire Slayer line, along with everything associated with it."  
Wesley had gotten very still and suddenly Giles realized that he had been kept out of the loop for even longer then him. "How many?"  
"Almost all the potentials were killed. There are only a few dozen left--- most of them are here with us now."  
"And--- the Council?"  
"They have been almost entirely destroyed. Almost every major base of operation was hit. The Council building in London was destroyed with almost no survivors." Giles swallowed. "I don't know for certain, but I believe that your father was one of the dead."  
Wesley swallowed rather grimly. The others all looked on in surprise. Giles didn't think that any of them had known that Wesley's father was a Watcher. "I'm sorry." The phrase seemed inadequate.  
"He... Called me a few months ago."Wesley was trying very hard to be brave, but Giles didn't think he would make it. "He wanted to know how things were going for me. He said something about that he was glad that I was in Los Angeles. That something big was coming, and I might be in danger." His chest gave a great heave. "I was so wrapped up in myself. He told me he understood what I was doing a lot better now, and I ... I couldn't tell him what had happened to me." He looked up. "W..what about the rest of my family?"  
"They're alright. Samuel sent them to a safehouse a few months ago. They're still alive." Giles wasn't sure that Wesley had heard him.  
"At least he died doing what he was best at." The last of his strength fell from him and he began to weep. For a moment no one was quite sure what to do. Willow walked towards him and put her arms around him. After a moment, Buffy left Angel's side and walked towards him as well.  
"I'm sorry. It's just..."  
"It's all right. It's better that you cry now than hold it all in." said Willow.  
"It's just... So many people dead. You think that you've steeled yourself for everything and then..." Wesley blinked. "How was it that you survived?"  
Giles rubbed his glasses."I heard a pair of shoes squeak."  
The others looked somewhat baffled at this. "Excuse me?" said Gunn.  
"I went to the home of one of the Watchers. His potential was dead. He was seriously wounded. I was so focused on seeing if he was all right, I didn't notice that there was a Bringer in the room. He was about to cut off my head, and I heard his shoes squeak on the floor. I turned and fought him off." He sighed. "That's the only reason I wasn't killed right then. I was lucky. Most of the others weren't."  
Giles then told how he had helped the other potential Slayers to Sunnydale. He told how the rest of them had managed to survive the coming of the UberVamps and the activation of the seal. He then told about the arrival of Faith and the embodiment of the First's power, Caleb. He had planned to gloss over the first attack on the vineyard and the rebellion that took place that ended up with Buffy forfeiting her leadership to Faith, but Buffy surprisingly related most of the information. When Giles cast a look, she said: "They should know all of it."  
Buffy then told how she had gone to the vineyard and found the weapon that had been forged to kill the old ones. She related how she had found one of the old ones and how she had defeated Caleb--- with Angel's help. She then explained how she and Willow had used the power of the Scythe to make all the Potential's genuine slayers. How they had won the last battle of Sunnydale, though not without sacrifice.  
"So I guess Spike was the champion after all." said Angel. "Funny, I never thought that he would have it in him."  
"I guess you never really know until you're tested. " said Dawn. For a moment Giles thought Angel winced but then he recovered.  
"So let me get this straight. All that once- in- a- generation crap is no longer true and the Hyperion is filled with Slayers." said Gunn.  
"Believe me when I tell you this;it's not nearly as much fun as it sounds." said Xander.  
"And the First Evil, the thing from which all evil originates has been destroyed." Gunn looked at Buffy for confirmation and she nodded. "Well, then what else is there to fight for? I mean now that the ultimate evil's been defeated, nothing worse can happen. Right?"  
Buffy looked at Giles then at Faith, then at Wesley. Giles spoke first. "It's not that simple. "  
"It rarely is." sighed Xander.  
"Throughout history, the universe has always relied on a balance of good and evil. Whenever some great evil arises some form of good is usually there to balance it. The First threatened to destroy this balance by attempting to eliminate the Slayer line." replied Giles.  
"And we rectified that by giving the power of the Slayer to everyone in the world." said Willow.  
"Yes, but one cannot expect a maneuver like that to occur without a drastic effect on the symmetry between these two forces. The First has been destroyed, but there will be consequences. "  
"You don't mean another big hellgod is going to show up here and try to set up housekeeping." said Fred. "I think once was enough for me."  
"It's unlikely that will happen. It's far more probable that several smaller evils will emerge and try and raise havoc. And now that the Hellmouth has been sealed, they could appear anywhere. Cleveland, New York..."  
"Los Angeles." said Gunn tiredly.  
"That would explain a lot. " said Angel.  
"Excuse me?"  
"Over the past few days there have been more reports of demon infestation in L.A. We thought that it was justa return to normal after Jasmine's demise, but...this does make sense." said Wesley.  
"Could the two of you not stand so close together? "said Xander. "I feel like I'm seeing double, especially when you talk like that." Wesley moved away from Giles.  
"Anyway, something needs to be done in order to redress the balance. Something to bring these things under control." said Giles.  
"That's kind of the reason why we're here." said Buffy.  
"What do you mean?"  
"When we released the power of the Slayer, we made the world into a different place. And I know that I need to do something to make sure that it becomes a better place."  
"So do I." said Willow.  
"Me too." said Faith.  
"We think that we can if we have your help." said Buffy.  
Angel looked at the others. "What exactly do you have in mind?"  
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Angel doesn't make all the decisions anymore. You want our help we have to all agree." said Gunn.  
"Actually that's what we want. I wouldn't feel comfortable making this offer if we didn't have your support."  
"Oh." Gunn looked a little sheepish.  
"Just hear us out." Buffy turned to the others. "With all these Slayers now being active, the WatcherS need to be restarted. The girls that are at the hotel. They all have the power of the Slayer and they have all been tested in combat, but we all know that alone doesn't make them ready to go out into the world on their own."  
"There are a lot of monsters out there even with the Hellmouth closed. And demons love challenges."said Giles. "There will be some time as the world gets adjusted to the idea that there are now many Slayers out there. Then they will begin a hunt."  
"But I thought that most monsters feared the Slayer." said Fred.  
"Most do. But that underscores the amount of demons that are out there. If only ten percent decide that they want to eliminate a Slayer, that would still go well into the thousands." said Wesley.  
"Plus a lot of the demons in the world were betting on the First to wipe Good out." added Xander. "When word gets out, theywill be coming for ve.... Blood." he finished weakly.  
"Furthermore, we have no idea how broad the effect of the Spell was." said Giles. "We don't know if giving every slayer power extends to only girls, to women who could have been Slayers but were never called and grew to adulthood, or if it effects babies who will be born."  
"Aren't there spells or something that are used to find Slayers?" asked Fred.  
"Yes, but only a handful of people in the world know it. And most of them were on the payroll of the Council." said Wesley. "How many are left?"  
"Less then a dozen, including myself." said Giles. "I can teach others to do it but we would need to spread our resources very thin in order to get them into places where they could use it."  
"Wait a minute. If only Watchers know how to find Slayers, then doesn't that mean that demons won't be able to?" said Dawn.  
Both Lorne and Angel shook their heads. "Most demons don't need spells in order to locate warriors. They can tell by smell or sensation." said Angel.  
"Smart demons when they see a Slayer run away. Unfortunately,there are a lot of dumb ones out there. And even worse, most often its the dumb ones that are also the strongest." Lorne sighed. " A Yakra demon, for example. Small brain, large claws." He looked at Buffy and Faith. "It would take a lot of skill for one of you lovely ladies to take one down. One of the women at the hotel, well it wouldn't be pretty.Whoever survived would take a hell of a beating."  
"So these Slayers would be in danger. And they need protection and training. I'm still not entirely sure how we come into the picture." said Gunn.  
"In order to train these Slayers, we would need resources. Magic, weapons,space, people who would be willing to travel the world." said Buffy.  
"Also, there would definitely need to be some major changes in how they are trained." said Giles. "Wesley can verify how absurd and archaic most of the practices that the Council made Slayers and Watchers undergo."  
Wesley nodded. "There would definitely need to be changes. So you would want to operate the Watcher's Council out of here?"  
"That's what we had in mind." said Willow.  
"Whoa. Whoa,Whoa. Let's back it up it bit. How exactly would this work?" asked Lorne.  
"I would send out the word to the rest of the Watchers... Still alive." Giles looked at Wesley for a moment, and seeing that he was OK, continued. "They would bring most of the lore and prophecies that they still had from the Council. Combined with whatever Wolfram and Hart gave you, we could probably have a library at least as good as the one in London."  
"I imagine it would." There was a faint look of remembrance on the younger Watcher's face. " And once they were here?"  
"WE would assign them Slayers and begin the process of locating all of the Slayers who have been called. At the same time, we'd also begin the process of finding new people that we would train to be effective Watchers capable of dealing with today's Slayers."  
"You keep saying 'we', said Angel. "What 'we' are you referring to?"  
"Myself, Wesley, Buffy, Faith, Xander, Willow and Robin. The rest of you are welcome to participate, but to be perfectly honest we know somewhat more about what it takes to be a Watcher then you would." said Giles.  
"Come to think of it, I think that it would make more sense for them to help. They may not know about Watcher's as well as we do but they certainly know more then enough about fighting evil to qualify." said Willow.  
Fred and Gunn looked at each other for a moment. "I'm not entirely sure whether we've been insulted or complimented." said Gunn.  
"I think that maybe it was both." said Fred.  
"Wait a minute. I understand that Wood did a lot of fighting, but how is it that he is more qualified than us to decide who a Watcher is?" asked Lorne.  
"The man was trained by a Watcher." said Buffy. There was the slightest trace of hostility and Giles wondered if she still held a grudge.  
"Huh? I mean aren't Slayers always female. The Robin's a little ambiguous I know, but still..." Fred turned to Wesley. "This make any sense to you?"  
"As a matter of fact it doesn't . Who was your Watcher?" asked Wesley.  
"Bernard Crowley."  
"Crowley. Wait a minute. He operated out of New York. Quit after his Slayer was... "It was like a thunderbolt had struck him. "You're Nikki Wood's son."  
"Wait a minute? You're telling me that a Slayer had a kid?" said Gunn. "How did that happen?"  
"I was born about three months before my mother was called. Bernard promised my mother that he would take care of me if something happened to her."  
"And something did. " Gunn thought. "So why did your Watcher quit? Because your mom died."  
Robin shook his head. "The higher-ups at the Council said it wasn't his responsibility. The next potential Slayer was more important then a real child. As Travers put it: 'The Council can not and will not take the duties of a day care facility'"  
"That does sound a bit like Travers." said Wesley. "But to return to the point, it seems that you're getting an awful lot without giving much back. We understand what you get. What do we get?"  
"Manpower. Or maybe womanpower is a better term. Well, I guess technically its girlpower, but I really don't want us compared to the Spice Girls. Actually, Slayerpower is a lot more accurate, but...." Willow turned to Buffy. "Maybe you had better explain."  
"OK. Wolfram and Hart basic surrendered control of it's LA office to you. Now maybe I'm making assumptions, but my guess is that you have a lot of resources, money, weapons, prophecies skilled magicians, etcetera. What I'm guessing you don't have is fighters. The five of you control a lot of power, but I doubt you have made any alliances that allow you access to people."  
"Well, Gunn has a crew that he made contact with a few days ago and there pretty disciplined." said Angel. "And Wes has a few friends that work with him, but otherwise you're basically right."  
"Then here's what happens. You take us on and help us reassemble the Watcher's council, we supply you with a team of warriors who can help you clean up Los Angeles."  
"I thought that these girls needed to be prepared to fight." said Fred.  
"Well, they have received a bit of training over the last few months." said Xander. "I think fighting the First Evil qualifies as boot camp."  
"They are all very skilled. Some more fighting against some monsters around here and they should be good to go." said Faith.  
The group of Angel Investigations all looked at each other for a couple of seconds. Eventually they all looked to Angel. "You make a strong offer..." the vampire said.  
"And it's not that we couldn't use the help..." said Wesley.  
"But you seem to be leaving some things out."  
"Such as?" said Giles.  
"Besides helping arrange the Watcher's Council, what would your duties be?"  
There was a brief pause. "We would be helping you in the fight against evil. Isn't that enough?" said Xander.  
"And you wouldn't want anything in exchange?" said Gunn skeptically.  
"No, we would want room and board, which you seem to have an excess of, and enough money for us to live on." said Buffy.  
"Wait, you want to be paid for fighting evil?" said Fred. "I... Isn't that... Wrong?"  
"Oh and I suppose that you and your friends have spent the last three years working for nothing. How exactly did you afford that hotel?" Faith's remark caused a certain amount of awkwardness around the Angel's investigation.  
"And this law firm? We're supposed to believe that all these attorneys are working pro bono?" said Dawn.  
"Well.... "  
"Uh?"  
"You see" The three most articulate members of Angel Investigations were temporarily struck dumb.  
"It's a good thing Cordy isn't here. She would not be on our side." said Gunn.  
"Look, we know that the payroll department here is active, but we have no idea how to withdraw money from the system." said Angel.  
"It's computerized, right?" asked Willow.  
"Yes, but it's encrypted and there are firewalls..." Angel trailed off weakly, knowing who he was dealing with.  
"Plus we don't know what would happen if Wolfram and Hart found out we had access to their money." said Wesley.  
"You've been taking all this shit from them for four years; you don't think that they owe you something?" said Dawn. Again the four of them looked at each other.  
"I wouldn't mind squeezing these fat cats for as much as we could." said Gunn.  
"We would be taking money away from evil and utilizing it for the greater good." said Wesley.  
"OK,OK, let's say that we pay you for doing this." began Angel.  
"Not just us. You're also paying the Slayers who decide to work here." said Giles.  
"Hold on. Let's not get carried away here. Are you sure that you want to send a message that fighting evil is something a person can earn a living on?" said Wesley.  
"These girls have spent the last six months unsure if they would live or die." said Buffy. "I think that they are entitled to a little workman's compensation."  
"Beside, they would only be earning money until they managed to find some other job. This is more a work- study program than it is anything else." said Giles.  
"All right,lets say that we agree to pay you. What makes you sure that any of these Slayers would want to continue to work here?" asked Angel.  
"Yeah, I mean if you offer them a choice whether they want to go home and lead normal lives or risk death and disfigurement, what choice do you think that they will take?" responded Gunn.  
"Right because you would make the same choice as well." said Xander. Again the people from Angel Investigations looked at each other awkwardly.  
"Some of them are going to say no. In fact, I'mpretty sure that at least six or seven of them are going to say we're going to keep our prizes and go home. But if they're anything like me and Faith, the desire to do good, to make the world a better place is going to be burning pretty deep inside of them. And some of them--- I think most of them--- want to see where this journey will take them." said Buffy.  
There was a long pause. "They're gonna do it because of the money, right?" said Gunn.  
"Oh yeah." said Buffy.  
"Definitely." said Faith.  
Angel looked at Buffy. "Are you sure that this is something you really want to do? I mean, after you fought Caleb, didn't you say that...?"  
"I know what I said. And I think that I'd better make things perfectly clear. Unofficially, I'm retiring. I will help train the girls and Dawn,I will help with research and if there's a really big nasty out there, I will saddle up. But otherwise, I'm no longer involved in the fight against evil. Furthermore, I'm no longer in charge. If you agree to this, I have an idea on how we can handle who does what, but I'm no longer the single voice of authority." She looked at Angel. "I need to figure out what I'm going to do with my life, but the fact of the matter is that I'm not sure what else I'm good at. And until I can--- whether that is a job or finishing college or whatever-- I need this."  
Angel looked at the others. "What about the rest of you?"  
Willow looked at the others. "Well, I want to finish college and maybe do something else with my life. But I think that I could be good as a Watcher." She looked at Angel. "And that thing about atonement that you were always talking about, I kind of feel that I need to do that too."  
"Xander, you've never been my biggest fan. And its pretty obvious that you haven't mellowed much in the past four years.Why would you go along with this?"  
"It's not like I have a lot of career options. There are only so many options available for a one-eyed high school graduate and all of my previous references are currently under the ground. Add to that the general state of the economy, I think I'd have to be a lot dumber than I look in order to pass up this opportunity." Xander nodded at the others. "I'm going to find some other job but right now Buffy's line works for me. Besides this is a pretty big law firm; I think we can manage to work around each other."  
The vampire took all this in. "And what about Dawn?" he asked Buffy.  
"Um,you can talk to me. I'm not invisible." Dawn piped up.  
"Sorry. But you are only sixteen."  
"That's how old Buffy was when she got called."  
"I know that, Dawn. But she was called; you weren't. "  
"The girls just came fresh from the last battle of the Hellmouth." said Buffy, with a little pride. "She's been field tested and combat ready."  
"Look Dawn, this is a dangerous career. And despite all the trappings I have, the health plan really stinks, if you know what I mean."  
"I know; I'm not a fool." Dawn turned to her sister. "He means I could get killed, right?" Buffy nodded.  
"You're a very smart girl. There are certainly a lot of better and safer careers that you could choose." said Wes.  
The sisters looked at each other.Dawn spoke "I can't just go back to high school and pretend that the last year never happened. I need to do something to make a difference."  
Angel looked at Buffy. "You're OK with this?"  
Buffy put her arm around her sister's shoulder. "I promised her that I'd show her the world. I'm going to keep that."  
The five people--- actually the four people plus Lorne; Giles kept forgetting the demonic nature of the fifth member---looked at each other for several seconds.  
Wes spoke first. "I'd be willing to have you work with us."  
Gunn was next. "Hey, if it means that we get paid, I'm all for it."  
"I think the more backup we have in this band, the better music will play." Everyone looked at Lorne. "I'm sorry. I was trying for film noir and hit nouveau."  
"We have a lot of work to do in L.A. The more people we have doing it, the better. Especially if they're Slayers." Fred blushed. "Of course watchers are good too. So are demon fighters and witches and... And..." She paused. "Xander."  
"Yeah, you can always use three or four Xander's when the chips are down." said Dawn.  
"Am I being complimented or insulted?"  
"Your call." Both Dawn and Xander smiled. Everyone else was looking at Angel. He walked towards Buffy  
"Do you really believe that the two of us can work together and not feel the way that we feel?"  
There was a long pause. "We're not the same people we were four years ago, Angel. I think that I can manage. Can you?"  
There was another long pause. The faintest tinge of a smile seemed to play across the vampire's face. "Welcome to the team."  
There was a general reaction of elation from the others. Fred and Willow seemed particularly cheerful for reasons Giles could not understand.  
"Willow, I'll have my secretary get you a laptop and the general access to the Wolfram and Hart mainframe. Try to be very subtle. Eventually the home office will figure out what we're doing but there's no need to give them advance word."  
"Gotcha."  
"I think that Rupert and I had better start making contact with whoever is left of the Watchers. You sure that they will listen to us?"Wesley asked.  
Giles nodded. "There's no reason they won't. It's not as if there is anyone else who would draw their attention."  
"Faith and I should probably get back to the hotel and lay out the situation for the other Slayers. Can you get together some money for us?"  
"Why? What are we going to need it for, B?"  
"Like I said some of the others are going to want to go home. The least we can do is give them plane fare back."  
Faith nodded. Angel walked over to Robin.  
"Have you and Xander decided exactly who you're going to work with?"  
"Not yet. " The former principal was cool but not hostile towards the vampire.  
"Then you might want to work with Gunn and Fred, at least for now. They're in charge of security and weapons and they could probably help you get situated and prepared. By the way, Xander about your eye..."  
"What, you think I'm going to be a liability because I have no perception? I'll be fine."  
Angel took a step back. "Actually, I was going to ask if your doctors had done all that they could. I made a joke about our health plan, but we might be able to find someone who could fix it for you."  
"Really?" Xander was trying to play it cool but there seemed to be the slightest tinge of hope in his voice.  
"Wait, wait. Hold it." said Dawn. Everybody turned to look at the young girl. "Aren't we all forgetting someone?"  
"Dawn, we were getting around to you."  
"Not me, although I would like to be assigned somewhere." She sighed."What are we going to do about Andrew?"  
"Oh cripes." There was a general reaction of dismay from the Sunnydale contingent.  
"Wait a minute. Y'all still holding on to the kid who murdered his best friend?" asked Fred.  
"Yes, I guess we have. Buffy what do you think we should do with him?"asked Xander  
"What did I just say.? OK, let me make something clear. Remember before when I said about how this wasn't the place where majority ruled?"  
"I think we all remember something along those lines." said Giles ironically.  
"Well that's one of things we change. From now on this is a democracy. " Buffy said  
"That's all it takes? Man, that revolution was easy."said Xander.  
"What are you talking about?" asked Angel.  
"I'm thinking that all of us would act as some sort of council of elders to decide what is done and who goes where. If there is a divisive issue, we vote on it. Majority rules."  
"And you think that the girls at the hotel will just go along with not having a say in what they do?" said Faith.  
"Um, well maybe we can..." Buffy verbally stumbled.  
"We can work out Parliamentary procedure later. I think that Buffy's general idea is a good one; I'd be willing to go along with it." Buffy flashed a silent thank you at Giles.  
"There's a lot of merit in that; I'd be willing to go along with it too." said Wesley. The others all spoke agreement as well. Angel seemed a little reluctant, but he nodded his assent.  
"Even me?" said Dawn.  
Buffy sighed. "Yes, Dawn even you." For a moment it looked like she was going to squeal, but she gained control of herself.  
"All right, then the question that WE have to deal with is what do we do with Andrew?"  
Buffy turned to Willow. "Granted I'm not entirely impartial, but I think that he should go to jail for what he has done."  
"I don't know,Will. I'm not Andrew's biggest booster, but should we be the ones to play judge and jury?" said Xander.  
"Xander, the boy has committed a series of crimes. He probably should be turned over to the proper authorities. " Giles turned to Faith wondering if she would raise any outcry, but she remained surprisingly quiet.  
"I don't know. Andrew doesn't seem like your ten-most wanted type.And doesn't the fact that he fought with us count for anything?" said Dawn.  
"Wait a minute. Didn't he commit his crimes in Sunnydale?" asked Wesley.  
"Yeah. What's your point?" said Willow a bit crossly.  
"I'm just not sure whether the Los Angeles police would be able to charge him with anything with most of the proof under the rubble of Sunnydale."  
"Dude's got a point. Unless you have something legitimate that you can charge him with, he probably couldn't be held." said Gunn.  
"All right, say we don't turn him over to the authorities. Does anybody here feel real comfortable with the idea of keeping him here working with us?"  
There was a long silence as the group pondered this question. Then the last person that Giles would have expected to speak did.  
"Look, I know that I am the last person who should talk about letting a criminal go free---"  
"Actually Faith, you're probably more qualified then most of us so go ahead." said Xander.  
"I don't believe that Andrew is any real danger to us. And I think that everyone in this room"--- she paused--- "well, at least everyone from Sunnydale doesn't consider him that way either."  
"How do you know what we think? " asked Dawn.  
"You let him go to the monastery with Spike."  
"Well, he might have been scared of him..." Willow trailed off weakly.  
"And you let him go to get food and medical supplies after.. Well, you know." The rest of the Sunnydale contingent pondered this. "He didn't try to betray you or run away. That has to count for something."  
"Why are you so high on him? " asked Robin.  
"I had a conversation with him about a week ago. Let's me tell you something; he's not the person you captured all those months ago. He had a..." Faith struggled. "What's that thing you have when you realize something important? It starts with an 'e'.  
"Enlightenment?' said Giles.  
"Not that."  
"Epiphany." Angel had gone very still after he made his suggestion.  
"That's it. He's a different person now. And I think he's a better person."  
Everyone considered this."But what do we have him do. I mean despite how he fought at the high school, I don't think he has quite the stuff to be a warrior." said Buffy.  
"Wes, Giles when the two of you were working for the council, they made you keep records of all the battles that the Slayer fought in, right?" Both men nodded. "Well, let him do that. Have him keep a record of what happened this year in Sunnydale. The Last battle of the Hellmouth. That would keep him busy and out of your hair."  
"He did seem to have a grasp of that when we were back in Sunnydale." said Xander.  
"It would save us a lot of trouble." Giles admitted.  
Buffy looked around. "Willow, are you sure that you would be OK with this?"  
Willow thought for a moment. Finally she said: "I won't lie and say that I'll be glad to work with him, but I managed to get along with him for a while. I think I can keep that up."  
"So everybody is OK with Andrew staying with us?" There was a general murmur of assent. "All right, but one of us had better keep an eye on him, at least for a little while."  
The groups of people began to break up. And as he walked with Wesley to begin making the calls to the rest of the Watchers, he began to feel something that he had not felt for a very long time. Certainly not for the past few months.  
He felt optimistic. Maybe they could rebuild the Council. And maybe with all the new Slayers that now existed, the struggle of good versus evil might finally have shifted decisively. Maybe now with the First beaten, there was actually hope that evil would slowly begin a retreat.  
He had no idea how wrong he was about that last thought. 


	5. Chapter 5: A Visit to Another Place

5.A BRIEF TRIP TO ANOTHER PLACE  
In the beginning, God made Heaven and Earth. AT least that's was Genesis says. In actuality, he made Earth first, then Hell. Heaven was something of an afterthought.  
Since the beginning of the written word, Man has tried to figure out exactly what the nature of Heaven is. Because, let's face it, that's what they would like to look forward to. But since you need to have something to frighten children in order to scare them into doing good, they have also tried to describe what Hell is like.  
Back in the days of the Old Testament, the Jews believed that when you died, regardless of your nature you went to a dark and unhappy place called Sheol. Later on, they said that the wicked were separated from the righteous and would be cast into a valley called Gehenna. Real barrel of laughs, the ancient Jews. But it was a good image, so the Christians and the Muslim co-opted it when they decided that they didn't want it anymore.  
The Greeks, being slightly more inventive, came up with the idea that when the soul died it went to a neutral region called Hades. If you had been good, you went to the Elysian Fields. If you had been bad, you went to Tartarus. Now Hades was described as being drab and dull, but not necessarily painful--- the Cleveland of the underworld, let's say. But because Tartarus was located below Hades, many less literate Greeks eventually came to associate the downward journey with going to unending torment. Which just goes to show which of the other world dimensions has the better PR.  
When the Christians came around, many of them believed that a just and loving God could never have created a place such as Hell.It was regulated to the realm of symbolism. That is why so many Christians fundamentalists die with a look of surprise on their face. They've just seen where that light at the end of the tunnel is coming from..  
The Hindus and the Buddhists believe that a soul may descend to one of many hells if you were wicked but you stay only until the wicked karma's effect has been removed. They've never agreed on anything else since and they were wrong about that as well.  
Around the fourteenth century a well meaning Italian named Aligheri changed the perception of hell. It was no longer bad enough just to go there; now it had sublevels based on HOW evil you had been. Of course,considering that one of the big no-no's was fornication, he did get a good description as to how busy the place was. Now he also described Purgatory and Paradise, but who reads that? The Inferno was an ordeal enough as it Is and it is for that we remember this Florentine who had a real twisted idea as to what a comedy was supposed to be.  
A little later, a king named Henry got sick of being told who he could marry and who he could kill and decided to form a church of his own. Then a little known professor named Marty attached something to a church door not related to bake sales. This eventually led to a group of people redefining what it takes to eternally damn you. Then people who were wound tighter broke away from that branch. Then the people who found Calvinism to be too loose broke away from them. These people were so uptight that the English kicked them out. All of them seemed to agree that Hell was meant to be reserved for those who didn't believe in their god. Basically, it was Gehenna 2.0.  
By the time they got to America, the idea of hellfire and damnation were very popular. Of course the Puritans were very surprised when they learned that the people they had stoned to death in the name of God were NOT in Hell and they were. AS America matured, however, people gradually became less and less concerned what Hell was like and more and more about material things like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Hell was left to the clergy, who gradually found themselves reduced to telling everybody once a week for an hour that they were going to suffer eternal damnation. There were some stuck up people who argued that alcohol lead to the devil and they were still on that sex-is-evil kick, but gradually people began to care less and less.  
There were ,of course, exceptions. In the early part of the twentieth century, a decent (for a Frenchman)thinker came up with the novel idea that the worst kind of torture man could devise was his fellow human beings. Some other well-meaning writers came up with several variations on the same theme: that hell was repetition. And in the later part of the century, some very imaginative (some might consider them deranged) artists came up with concepts of the whole Hell concepts basically portraying two Hells: the metaphysical one and the one on Earth. They also suggested that perhaps the course of time had twisted Heaven to the point where it was playing by the same rules as the forces of evil. (Indeed,one portrayal was so accurate that many higher and lower beings considered suing Todd McFarlane for copyright infringement.)  
All of these concepts are interesting but all of them seem to miss the point. At least if you have been trying to bring the proverbial 'Hell On Earth' about. We all know that Hell is a terrible place to live for the damned soul. But what is it like to live in if you have never had a soul? If you have always been damned.  
Back in the 1930's a bright light among the mortals named Fred Allen said that "California is a great place to live--- if you're an orange." (For all his brilliance Allen is best known among the demon world as a fool. In 1926, a Heckla Demon-- known as being the most humorless of a species that doesn't possess much comedy to begin with--- offered long life and great fame to Allen in return for his soul and alteration of his material. Enraged, Allen said that HE would write his own jokes, and thus missed out on the opportunities offered to his fellow vaudevillian's George Burns, Bob Hope and Milton Berle.) Similarly, one might say that Hell is a great place to live--- if you're a demon. Of course, even the most patient demon gets bored after a few aeons. And when you possess the desire to spread evil across the Earth then Hell can be a very unpleasant place indeed.  
To a demon, Hell is your typical neighborhood. The worse kind of monster that you are, the better Hell is for you. You live in the finest establishments, you eat only the purest babies, the whole nine yards--- sort of a Plaza Hotel with hot and hotter running brimstone. But even if you were staying in the luxury suite, when you're an evil mastermind not even the greatest trappings can appease you.  
Which was one of the reasons that an evil so old that it had whispered in the ear of Cain was sitting at the juice bar of this particular satanic establishment feeling royally pissed off.  
For one thing, it is a little known rule of shape-shifting demons sent to this demonic level of the underworld that you have to keep the form that you used the most while you were on the surface. In the case of the First Evil, that form was Buffy Summers. And while many of her former victims--- most of whom were staying in this building--- would attest that the Slayer was a formidable foe, compared to many of the other evils who were around here, she was a Barbie Doll.  
For another thing, there is a pecking order of demons even in the underworld. When you're below the surface, if you are a really awesome big bad (to put it in terms a certain vampire known as William had been fond of using) people will stay out of your way and fall to your authority. If, on the other hand, you go to the surface world and fail to bring about the endtimes, you drop to the lowest rung of the ladder. Doesn't matter how cruel you are, or how close to succeeding you came to winning; you have just become the demonic equivalent of Jimmy Carter in the eyes of the fallen.  
So now the First Evil was stuck in the 'hotel bar' ordering Bloody Marys (with actual blood) trying desperately to get drunk and take it's mind of it's problems. There was not much of a chance that was going to happen. For one thing, demons have a tolerance level for alcohol roughly twenty times that of a human being. For another, the bar was filled with demons who had also come close to ending the world but whose failure did not entail breaking the balance of good versus evil with evil getting the shaft in quite such a fashion. And since in certain levels of Hell you don't get HBO, they were looking and muttering at the First with real disapproval.  
At the current moment, one of the more menacing fiends was fixing it with a particularly nasty stare. Considering what was looking at it, the impression was very unpleasant. It was clearly a vampire, but where most vampires can at least look human, no one would ever make that mistake with him. He had no hair and his face was so malformed and twisted, it looked very demonic. His fingers tapered off into claws. His teeth were fangs. He looked very menacing and would have sent some demonic forces scuttling off into the netherworld.  
"The First? Huh? First of what? Of failures? Of dashed hopes? You know, for all the years that you spent preparing for your--" he made an unassuming gesture--- "whatever, you could have at least come up with a better title."  
"Shut up, kid." The blond girl growled at the thing.  
"Kid? Ah, very amusing. Since I'm only a thousand years old, I'm just a meddling youngster." A scowl appeared on his face, though it was hard to tell the difference from how it normally looked. "But then, right here and right now, you're the kid. I am still The Master."  
"Yeah, and a great threat you were. Getting trapped in an interdimensional space and time for over a hundred years. You get out and get killed. Really big menace you were." It refused to look at him.  
"Yes, but I managed to kill the Slayer."  
"For five minutes."  
"That's still better then you did. Did you even land a punch on her in that last fight? Or did you just wisp around and make ominous threats?" The First concentrated on the drink in front of it. "Really big shot you were. You may have been the First once, but here you're no better than any of us. In fact, I'd say you're lower than me."  
"No. I invented darkness. I created evil. I am the---"  
"Yeah, yeah, The ultimate power, the source,blah blah blah." The First turned towards the speaker. She appeared to be a young, tall, attractive woman in her late twenties. She looked very beautiful but there was something in her walk and talk that screamed power. "So you were the First Evil. Big frigging deal. I mean, I was once the god of another dimension, but you don't hear me harping on it all the time."  
"Yes we do." The hellgod which had been known to Buffy as Glory whirled around to the Master.  
"Excuuuuse me?"  
"You've been here for Evil knows how long and all you keep saying is what a shitty place this is and that you wish you were back in your own dimension. Really, I'd cut off my own ears rather than listen to you yammer."  
"First of all, cut off your ears. It might actually make you look better. Second of all, in case you hadn't noticed, this place SUCKS! I mean, Earth wasn't a bed of roses, but at least there I had minions and peoples whose brains I could suck and decent clothing. There isn't even a Prada around here, for crying out loud." Glory heaved a sigh. "Even for Hell, this place is a real shithole."  
"Hey, hey, hey." Everybody looked at the new voice. It appeared to be an unassuming middle-aged man in a nice suit. His whole attitude seemed to suggest that he didn't belong here. And the smile that crossed his face REALLY seemed like he didn't fit here.But if any of the Scoobies had seen him they would have known to tread very carefully. They would have known that Richard Wilkins III was not a thing to be trifled with.  
"Now I know that this isn't your home dimension, but there's no need to use that kind of language. I mean, what will the children think?" He chuckled. "Of course there aren't many children here, and those who are probably have heard that kind of talk, but that's still no reason for vulgarity."  
"Somebody turn him off." said Glory.  
"Well that's not very nice. Maybe you should take up a hobby; keep yourself occupied. When I was Mayor, I had one of the nicest coin collections, and man did it keep me calm whenever things got tense." He pondered this for a few moments. "Of course, most of them came from pocket change that I got from sacrifices, and most of the things around here only take Susan B. Anthony dollars, but still you have to do something to keep yourself from going crazy." He smiled. "Well, that ship may have sailed as well."  
"You know, if we were back in my dimension, I wouldn't even bother to suck your brain.It's SO obvious that there's nothing there."  
"Whoa. That's no way to respect your elders, young lady." The Mayor sounded a little hurt at being treated this way.  
"Hello, ancient Hell god talking."  
"Only in your dimension, dear. Here you're just a little kid."  
"And so are you." Everyone turned to the new voice which came from a tall,dark-skinned and very beautiful woman--- especially considering that she had her face smashed in before joining this particular branch of the underworld.. There was a moment when even the First considered deferring but it quickly passed.  
"None of you know how to appreciate your superiors. When you were merely puling about, I ruled whole worlds. Species fell at my feet. I was worshiped by all."  
"Put a cork in it, Jasmine." The First Evil finally spoke. At first, it had been somewhat amused watching these former powers in the world of evil squabble among themselves. But now if was beginning to find all of this somewhat tiresome.  
"You can all talk a good game. But the ugly truth --- and I'm talking to all of you, not just him" it indicated the Master "all struck out in the clutch." It continued to point. "You just got yourself killed five seconds after escaping." It shifted its glance to the Mayor. " You let your emotions get the better of you and got turned into snake food." It looked at Glory. "You spent four months trying to get home and you got snuffed by the Watcher before the proceedings commenced." Then finally, it shifted its glance towards Jasmine. "And you were the biggest disgrace of them all. I did everything in my power to see that you made it to the surface. All you had to do was get the world ready. And you failed because you let that damnable vampire get away. You may think that you're evil, but you all just sucked wind."  
"As I recall, you were supposed to eliminate the Slayer four years ago and you couldn't pull that off." said the Mayor. "And you couldn't even get rid of Angel."  
"Yeah, if you had done your job right I wouldn't have had any problem taking over that planet." said Jasmine.  
"And as for my little failure to spread hell, if I hadn't 'failed', Buffy would never have died the second time and you could never have been brought back to the world." Glory had a smile on her face that did nothing to make her look better.  
"The fact is you sucked even more wind than all of us put together." said the Master. "You may have brought out my ancestors and destroyed all the Watchers and killed as much of the Slayer Line. But when crunch time came, you fell like one of your minions. Now the forces of good are much stronger and our side is much weaker. You may have assumed our forms in order to try and win, but ultimately you couldn't utilize them any better than you could use---her."Or you going to feed some line of bullshit that this was all part of your master plan as well?"  
All of these formerly strong forces of evil fixed the First with such withering stares that eventually even it had to look away. "No. I had not foreseen that."  
"So, I ask yet again? What have you done to make you better than us?" As he spoke, the Master advanced towards it as if he was going to do some serious hurt.  
But then the first turned and fixed the others with a smile that oozed evil. "Because, unlike all of you, I made some friends down here that still have some pull." Suddenly it turned and spoke. "Mr. Manners!"  
For a few seconds---- which can be very long in a demon dimension--- nothing happened. Then a puff of smoke exploded. When it cleared, a middle- aged man in a business suit stood before him. Apart from the teeth marks around his neck, he looked no different then any other businessman you might find on the surface.  
The others stood around somewhat surprised. The Mayor spoke first. "Holland, is that you?"  
Holland Manners, former head of Special Projects at Wolfram and Hart, turned with a smile. "Richard! My word." The two men shook hands as if they had met at work. "How long has it been?"  
"Oh, you know how time turns to smoke around here. " He smiled. "So, obviously you must have moved up a bit if you're able to float between dimensions like this."  
"Well, you know upward mobility is not considered a good thing in our line of work."  
"Don't I know it?" Both men laughed as if they were still young--- and had their souls.  
"If I may interrupt you gentlemen." The First slowly pushed his way between the two friends. "Mr. Manners, how are things proceeding in the home office?"  
"Well, we have been making adjustments. Obviously, we may not be able to operate out of the California branch for some time. And the global ramifications to our industry may not begin to see the true effect for years to come."  
"I know this, Mr. Manners, get to the point."  
"There are other global distortions that are vulnerable to our manipulations. IT will take some time, but we're already at work in Munich, Tokyo, and of course Cleveland. We expect that we will soon be able to resume operations."  
The First smiled. "And the Slayer?"  
"You'll have to be a lot more specific. Accounting has already detected the presence of over one hundred and fifty and those are just the ones who fit the specific age groups"  
The First winced as the reality of the situation again hit it. "The ones who came from Sunnydale."  
"AH. They have formed an alliance with our Los Angeles Office."  
"WHAT?"  
"Don't act so surprised. Mergers and Acquisitions said that there was a 45% chance of something like this happening. " said Holland calmly.  
"And what are you planning to do about it?"  
"Well the home office did make an agreement with the Angel Investigations team that we would have no contact with their Los Angeles office."  
"You're just going to let them HAVE LA?"  
"Are you suggesting that we violate our agreement?" Manners actually seemed offended by this. "Once Wolfram and Hart enters into an agreement. it will stand by it for the life of its holder." Manners gave a slow smile. "Of course, if outside factors should interfere with the aforementioned parties, then I believe we might be able to see around the aspects of the deal."  
A smile appeared on the First's face as well. "Excellent. You will keep me abreast?"  
"Of course, sir--- ma'am--- um is there any form of address that you would prefer?"  
The First grimaced. "Seeing as I'm stuck in this particular form, I guess you had better call me 'Miss.'" A smile appeared. "Of course that will change when I can."  
"Of course, Miss." Holland Manners disappeared in a puff of smoke. The other villains looked around shocked.  
"What do you mean: 'change when you do?' As long as you're here, you're stuck like all of us." said Glory.  
"Ah, but I do not intend to spend eternity with all of you. " The others took this in with a sense of shock that they had not believed they could have felt.  
"But no one can return to the surface after they have been dispatched." Jasmine spoke. "WE've all tried, but..."  
"Well, you're not the boss. You didn't invent the rules."The First gave a smile. "I'll admit that it will take some time and maneuvering, but I waited a thousand years for my first chance to retake the surface. I can certainly wait until the so called powers- that- be stop looking for me. And who knows, maybe if you treat me well, I might be convinced to take some of you back with me."  
There was a moment as their villainous tendencies fought with their desire to remain strong. AT last, the Master spoke.  
"You may have some tricks that you haven't played yet, but that doesn't change the fact that you are still dead and there isn't a force above that can bring you back." The others scowled and looked away from it.  
"That might be true. But I'm not called the source of evil for nothing. There are back-routes and side routes that none of you can imagine. There are forces that I can utilize which no one would think of. And they may have a few more forces on the side of good, but evil has always been able to match good man for man and there's no reason we will stop now." It scowled. "They may think that they have won. But I will show them. In death, I will be triumphant."  
In normal circumstances, the villain would normally break into diabolical laughter. But that was too cliche for the First. Instead, it merely smiled and ordered another drink.  
Not knowing that even as it drank, a force that was invisible to all had seen and heard everything. And said the only thing that came to mind.  
"Bollocks."  
  
To BE Continued.... 


End file.
